Swallowed (The End of the Line Remix)
by LookingForOctober
Summary: Acathla swallowed the earth into hell, and Spike isn't happy about it. Neither are Buffy and the rest of the gang. Neither is newly called Slayer Faith. Some of them think there might still be a chance to do something, but even with the world in the balance, working together has its problems.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's note:** This story is a remix of To Cancel Half a Line by brutti_ma_buoni, and was written for Round 1 of the Buffyverse Remix Ficathon. I tried to include links to the original story and the ficathon, but this site keeps removing them. The original story by brutti_ma_buoni can be found on Archive of Our Own, and the ficathon can be found on Dreamwidth under the username buffy-remix.

**-.-.-.-.-**

It was an ugly day in hell, uglier than usual. The black disk where the sun used to be back before hell engulfed the earth was covered in clouds, and gritty mist dirtied the air, formed from the fumes rising from steaming puddles and mixing with the noxious combination of dust and ashes that couldn't be escaped, no matter where in hell you went. It clogged the throat and coated the lungs and got stuck in the corners of the eyes.

The figures moving through this dense fog were just outlines and shadows: shadows of the armed groups of ragged men and woman marching together for protection, shadows of hungry animals stalking the shadows of vampires and demons hiding in yet more shadows. They were barely visible until you were right on top of them, their weapons greeting your weapons, their eyes as wary as your own. And then maybe you fought, and maybe you kept them in your sights while you carefully edged past each other.

And over them all, the shadows cast by the hell lords were the darkest. They stretched across the ground and the sky, and everyone shied away from them.

Even Spike. He didn't want any trouble, especially not with the Slayer at his side, watching his every move. They might be allies, but he didn't trust her not to take advantage if he got into a bad situation, and he'd be willing to bet she didn't trust him either. If she did, she bloody well shouldn't.

But they wanted the same thing, to save the world from this bloody hell, and on days like today, it never hurt to have another fighter at your side.

The Slayer turned her head aside from the slave market in the parking garage of the Sunnydale Mall, her nose wrinkled in angry disgust. Loudly humming electric lights cut through the fog and illuminated the blocks, the branding irons, the huddled slaves: mostly humans, but the occasional vampire or demon. The ones that couldn't take care of themselves. Spike sauntered along behind her. The smell of blood and burnt flesh was a nice change from the sulfury tang that pervaded everywhere else.

The Slayer glanced back, glaring at him to hurry up. "Might want to buy me one," Spike said as he caught up. "It'd be doing them a favor. Just a vampire, and on the scale of evil, that's pretty low right now."

They might be allies, but that didn't mean he couldn't have some fun. Had to get his kicks somehow. The Slayer's reaction was a bit disappointing, though. She just grimaced; it was almost like she agreed with him. Well, he was trying to save the bloody world for the sake of blooming onions, so maybe she had a point.

Make that blooming onions and revenge, can't forget that.

They entered the mall through doors that shimmered with the heat of a clear-burning flame. Even as they slid back, the heat radiating from them was uncomfortable. The Slayer ran for it, but she could do that as a puny human. Spike had to pretend like he didn't care. He had a reputation to maintain. Hellfire wouldn't burn a vampire, all those years fearing to go up like tinder were over, but old habits were hard to break.

There was a sheen of sweat on the Slayer's face when Spike rejoined her, and a pack of five-headed dogs were circling. Buffy was waiting for an opening, her marketing basket held like a weapon. It had a steel plate in the bottom, and Spike wouldn't want to be hit by it.

The dogs weren't that smart, and she stunned three of them in one pass before Spike joined her. The remaining dogs yapped and snapped, all fifteen heads worth. Then Spike drew the sword at his side, and the dogs whined and fled from the sickly green glow.

I helped bring hell to Earth and all I got was this lousy sword, Spike thought. Not that he'd been very enthusiastic about the whole hell plan, but he'd been there when the hell demons arrived and the prizes were handed out. Angelus had a crown that summoned lightning and the title King of the Sulfur Mountain, and Dru got a scepter that made the earth quake and the title Queen of the Burning Plain. Spike, still in his wheelchair, still helpless and hurting, got a sword and the title Knight of Angelus.

How Angelus had laughed. Bloody fool, always crowing about his triumph, as if anyone really wanted to live in a world with the stench of sulfur and ashes in the nostrils and no fun to be had in all the world.

If only Spike had got out of that bloody wheelchair sooner, the world would never have gone to hell, and he wouldn't be here, walking past a shop selling sulfur-scented candles to minor hell demons. Walking in the company of the bloody Slayer.

Maybe it was Spike's sword, maybe it was the Slayer and her steel basket, but they didn't have much trouble getting through the crowds. When someone was slow getting out of their way, Spike dropped into game face and put his hand on the hilt of his sword. For tricky cases, he drew it half way out of the sheath so the green glow showed. That usually did the trick. This was a world of tooth and claw, threat and counter-threat, and Spike got along just fine.

After they passed the lava fountain in the center court, surrounded by basking salamanders, and the body parts shop, with a display of hands of glory in the window, Spike let the Slayer take the lead. She ducked down a side corridor that he couldn't even see, pulling him after her. She took the second right, the first left, and then the third right, and then knocked five times on the white doorway.

There's a market in everything in hell, and the doorway opened to reveal the white market. The good and pure and whole was on sale here, what little scraps were left. The Slayer breathed easier, and he didn't blame her. She had to actually _breath_ the damn sulfur stink, after all. Even Spike liked it better here, it smelled like greasy food and flowers and cookies and fruit, and the air was cooler. He got a few looks as he shaded his eyes from the bright light - not sunlight, but closer than anything else in hell - but mostly he was ignored.

White was relative. There were plenty of vampires in here, he could smell them. Demons too, but it was demons who'd made this in the first place, or a demon and a witch, the stories varied. All of them the sort who'd lived on earth back when it was earth-like, not the sort who appeared when earth fell into hell. If the hell demons ever found this place, there would be no fruit or flowers any more, that much everyone knew.

"I'd expect a bit more bustle, a place like this," Spike said. The first impression was impressive, but after that he started to notice the empty carts and the sparse displays. "Bloody hell, even the gin joint where I met up with your Watcher had more of an atmosphere."

"There's a lot more back in the corners," Buffy said. "But...I think the demon that was selling herbs is gone." She sighed. "Oh well, come on, we'll just have to make the best of it."

She wasn't the quite the same fighting Slayer Spike had gotten to know over the point of a stake earlier in the year. She slumped when no one was looking. But she hadn't given up either, and determination substituted for enthusiasm.

They visited every stall and every cart, and pretty soon Spike saw why the corners were more popular: less distance to the bolt holes. Just in case. After buying a crystal ball at the last stall, they had most of the ingredients on the list Willow had given them.

They were looking for the components of a spell to kill demons. Willow, earnest ickle witch wannabe, claimed she could pull it off, and everyone had fallen into line with the idea. Spike had his doubts, but he'd joined the motley crew to do something about hell, and this was something, and he was bloody well doing it.

At least it got the buggers moving.

"We only have one thing left," Buffy said, frowning at the list, and then at the surrounding stalls as if she might have overlooked one. "Dragon scales."

"They're not here, pet," Spike said. "Guess we'd better check out the body parts shop outside."

Buffy frowned. "And pay with what?" The currency of the black market outside wasn't pretty, and she knew it as well as he did.

"Leave that to me," Spike said, totting up the value of a ceremonial sword that glowed green and deciding that it had damn well better be enough to trade for anything.

She gave him a skeptical look, a flare of the nostrils indicating disdain. "I know you don't have a crystal vial full of tears knocking around. So what is it? The haunted eyes that have looked on pure terror, rolling around in your pocket, or the scream cut short by death?" Even in hell, there was still death, it was just bloody hard to come by. And that wasn't even the worst of hellish currency. She said it flippantly, and he couldn't tell how much she cared.

"If I had any of that, I'd have bought some real blood," he said frankly. "No, barter. Or you could offer a scream on the spot. And make it good."

"I don't think so," she said. Her eyes were haunted enough, but he knew better than to suggest that. End up missing an eye of his own, probably, if he said it. She was still the bloody Slayer, not a tame little girl, no matter how quiet she might be. There was a wildness, a brokenness in her that reminded him of Dru.

He shrugged, she sighed, and they turned together and ventured back out, away from the smell of fruit and life, into the haze of hell.

"Dragon scale, that's not allowed," the weedy demon behind the counter at the body parts shop whined. Its skin was lumpy and glowed like lava in some places; in others it was cracked and burnt black, and its belly was engorged and its back hunched. It moved stiffly, like a broken robot, and stayed still when it didn't have to move.

"Don't give me that," Spike said. "There's dragons all over the place, scales have got to be easy to come by." Buffy was keeping low, letting him argue with the demon, just like he'd let her bargain with the humans in the white market. But he'd stood over her like a bodyguard, keeping an eye on things; she just hung back so far she disappeared.

"No," the demon said flatly. "The dragons keep them. When they shed them, they burn them." It shuddered. Surprising, when it looked like a lava demon of some sort.

Spike leaned across and grabbed the demon by the scrawny neck.

"Spike!" the Slayer scolded from her corner. Keeping an eye on things after all. He gave her a fanged grin, and tossed the shopkeeper at her in case she wanted to get in on the fun. She ducked, the shopkeeper crashed into a shelf of hearts, and a very unwelcome voice spoke from behind Spike.

"Who's this beating up my shopkeeper?"

And another voice said, "All hail King Angelus."

"King Angelus," Spike drawled, turning around. Angelus was flanked by a dozen demon guards and had a snake with multiple heads - or maybe just a knot of snakes - wrapped around his neck. The snakes were Dru's, if Spike had to guess.

Spike crouched, prepared to fight. That was where they'd left things the last time he saw Angelus, who'd timed the fight for just before Spike had recovered enough to have a chance of taking him on. Spike'd managed to surprise Angelus, but the result had been obvious from the start. Spike was gone before he could develop into an actual threat, Dru stayed.

She hadn't even pretended to be sorry. It was all about power with Dru these days. Not even torture and pain like it used to be. Just power. Angelus was a bad influence on her.

But the big lummox seemed to be in what passed for a good mood with him, his thin lopsided smile out in force. He didn't want to fight, he wanted to play. And he must not have noticed the Slayer, so Spike hoped she'd have the sense to stay out of sight. The last thing they needed was Angelus discovering she was alive. _She_ wasn't some vampire he'd let run off with his tail between his legs.

"If it isn't William, I could have sworn we'd seen the end of you. And you still have that sword I gave you. There may be hope for you yet."

"A weapon's a weapon," Spike said, slurring the words so Angelus would think he was drunk. Drunk was an excuse for just about anything, including being found in a shop selling body parts that didn't include blood.

And then he added, "Where's Dru?" Because he couldn't not.

"She's coaxing the salamanders to come out and play in the slave market," Angelus said.

"She would," Spike admitted, and he couldn't help the admiring tone that crept in, despite everything. "Always a force for chaos, our Dru."

"She has the right," Angelus said.

"Oh, I'm not denying that," Spike said.

"We both have the right to do whatever we want, because Sunnydale is ours now. King and Queen..."

"And a great bloody ponce you look in that crown," Spike said.

The crown started to crackle, and after a few seconds in which Spike stared in fascination, a bolt of lightning snapped from one of the pointy bits into Spike just as he started to duck. His muscles turned to water and he slid to the floor.

"Remember that," Angelus said smugly. He hadn't been able to do that, the last Spike knew. He'd stuck to beating vampires up the old fashioned way.

Feeling and the ability to move returned after a few seconds, but Spike had learned the hard way when not to press the issue with Angelus. Not when he had a Slayer hiding somewhere in the same shop, for example, and a fight would probably destroy her cover. So he waited, not as helpless as he looked, while Angelus commandeered a dozen demon livers, though what he wanted with it Spike couldn't imagine until Angelus handed them to some of his guards. The ones that didn't get any liver looked jealous. Oh yeah, that was how to handle minions.

"Dru would like to see you around," Angelus said before he left. "You should come by sometime..."

Angelus' smile promised fun to be had - for Angelus, at least. Come back, accept your punishment, let me have the shaping of you again. Well, Spike knew what he wanted, and it wasn't that.

"It'll be a cold day in hell," he said, and laughed. Didn't get any of those around here.

Angelus laughed too, a sneering sort of laugh that made Spike remember why he hated him and why he used to practically idolize him too. "Look at you down there," he said. "Drunk and purposeless. That's your problem, Spike. You lack vision."

Shaking his head in mock sorrow, Angelus left, his guards trailing along behind him.

"God, I hate that bloody bastard," Spike said, standing up and shaking out his arms and legs. No permanent lightning damage.

Buffy didn't reply.

"No worries, Slayer, he's gone," Spike said. He heard a hissing sound from the corner where she ought to be, and when he rounded the shelves, he discovered her pouring the last of an entire bottle of water over the lava demon shopkeeper.

"What are you _doing_?" The sheer bloody waste of it, all that water. Clean water, good water - that was valuable in hell, and even he, who didn't need it, followed the clear flow with a thirst that was hard to acknowledge.

"It's holy water," she said, looking up from the steaming mess she was making. It smelled horrible.

"You were carrying holy water?" Spike said, appalled. "Do you have any idea how dangerous that is?" Not to mention the waste of using it on some petty demon in a shop selling body parts.

"Good thing I was," she said, hoisting the demon into her arms.

"What is _wrong_ with you?" Spike asked in exasperation.

"I'm saving her," Buffy said. "I couldn't leave her like that."

"Like what? Buffy, it's a bloody-"

And suddenly when Spike looked at the demon he could see, as the lumps of frozen lava crumbled away, under the mud and grime and flakes of shiny black glass, a pregnant woman with a dead lava demon crouching on her hunched back, strained and terrified and exhausted.

"God," he said.

"No objections?" Buffy nodded, purposeful. With that light in her eyes, she almost looked like the Slayer he remembered, the one he'd wanted to kill so badly. "Then let's go."

"Wait a second."

She didn't pause. "What now, Spike?" she asked over her shoulder.

"Dru and Angelus used to ride around on a dragon," Spike said.

She stopped. "And you?"

"They never let me ride."

"You're just a second-class citizen wherever you go," Buffy said, rubbing it in.

"I'm gonna get Dru back," Spike said.

"Sometimes the ones that you love aren't who you think they are," Buffy said softly.

"Yeah," he said softly. "But..." He blew out his breath. "We're wasting time. Want to see if that dragon's around here or not?"

He didn't say anything when she shifted the pregnant woman to an over-the-shoulders hold and led the way out. Rank stupidity and no mistake, bringing a bloody pregnant woman to a battle with a dragon, but he knew a fight he couldn't win when he saw it.

He just wished there weren't so many of them lately.


	2. Chapter 2

Spike stood back and appraised the steaming pile of meat and bones that had once been a dragon. "Come on, Slayer, you gotta admit that was fun," he said. The wings were tatters. He'd done that first, to keep it from breaking its chain and flying away. The horns were broken; he'd done that to keep it from goring the woman Buffy had rescued: his fighting partner was distracted enough already. Along the dragon's neck were dozens of slashes. He'd been trying to find a weak point, and he still thought if he'd got it just right, he could have taken it from under the jaw.

But there was a stake in its eye. Buffy'd finally left her rescuee alone for all of five seconds and made the killing blow. It bloody well should have been his, that blow, but he'd just taken a scratch to his side and he'd been stumbling away from a gout of flame when Buffy darted in, leapt and flipped and pushed and the dragon fell over.

And she acted like it was nothing.

"Come on, Slayer, you gotta admit that was fun," Spike repeated.

The Slayer coughed and spit out a mouthful of ashy grey phlegm.

"I'll take that as a yes," Spike said, making sure he was breathing shallowly. He didn't have to breath at all, except it sure helped with the talking. But there was enough smoke and fumes in the air to cause burning to the lungs, even his. "Well, I guess it was worth going to hell to kill a dragon. Don't get many of those back on Earth," he said.

The Slayer straightened up, standing over the woman she'd rescued like a guardian angel. The fog swirled, swaths of darkness and swaths of inky nothing dimmed by the black hole in the sky where the sun had been. Once. Spike couldn't say he missed it.

Buffy surveyed the roof of the mall like she expected more hellbeasts to climb up and offer battle, but the place was deserted. Angelus should have parked his dragon out with the plebs instead of chaining it up here in solitary splendor. It was solitarily dead now, and it served Angelus right.

"Admit it, Spike, you still haven't killed a dragon," Buffy said, crossing to the dragon and climbing up to retrieve her stake from the eye socket. "It was all me," she said.

"I weakened it," Spike said. "I did all the work, and now you want all the glory. Typical."

"I'm just saying..." But then Buffy hopped down and fussed over the bloody woman some more. More concerned with that than the great beast they'd just dispatched. Slayers.

Sulkily, Spike sheared off a good long bit of scale and skin to hold it together, and dropped the dripping trophy into Buffy's basket.

"Ick, Spike, can't you clean it off first?"

Funny time for human squeamishness to come into play, when she was carrying around the woman with the lumpish belly. Human reproduction was not for the squeamish, but the Slayer didn't seem to notice. She was spending more precious water on the woman too. God.

Spike rolled his eyes and walked to the edge of the roof. No one had noticed anything going on up here. The fog did them a favor, but they needed to be going.

But there was one more thing to do first. Spike returned to the dragon and thrust his sword into the eye socket of the dragon, really working it in, completely obscuring any marks the stake might have left. He hesitated, then left the sword there. Knight of Angelus his arse. See how Angelus liked how he'd returned that little joke. Who was laughing now?

And Dru...would she notice? Dru...

The Slayer didn't notice. Too busy carting pregnant women around with a beatific expression on her face, like what _she_ was doing really mattered.

-.-.-.-.-

It started to rain on the way back to their secret safehouse, each acidic drop a pinprick of pain on exposed skin. It cleared away the fog, exposing vistas of leaning houses and dead trees. Everything was splintered and rotting and fading away. Another six months, and you'd barely know Sunnydale had been here, except for the unusual concentration of feral demons, demonic animals, and skeletal humans. They peered out of shattered windows and around decaying walls, the ones that had escaped the roundups.

Like the woman Buffy carried, hell changed them. The strongest were only weakening, but the weakest were devoured. Hell ate them from the inside out, and scoured them from the outside in.

Spike wondered if Buffy saw them, dozens of them lurking with hungry eyes. You couldn't save all the weak ones, even if you were a Slayer.

"Give me your coat," Buffy said.

"Why should I?"

Buffy nodded awkwardly to indicated the woman she was carrying, who was fitfully squirming, trying to escape the rain. "Because she needs it more than you. Can't you see she's in agony?"

"Yeah." Spike shrugged. "Humans in agony. Not exactly unusual these days, is it."

"Because if you don't, she's going to start screaming in pain and that'll draw attention," Buffy snapped.

"Knock her out," Spike said. "You're not getting my duster."

Her mouth twisted in disgust. "Carry her," she said, thrusting the woman at Spike. He had to take the bloody woman or she'd drop, and who knew what the Slayer would do then.

Buffy slid out of her own jacket, a little short sleeved thing, barely worth calling a jacket, and wrapped it around the woman. Then she brought out the blindfold and the ear plugs and the nose plug. "Oh no," Spike said. "Not yet, we're not anywhere near that point," Spike said. He wasn't allowed to know where the super secret hideaway was located, but he knew it wasn't around here.

"Short cut," Buffy said.

Spike eyed her suspiciously, but she seemed serious. "Fine," he sighed. "Just bloody fine."

They knew what they were doing, whoever had put together this set to muffle a vampire's senses. He hated not knowing where he was or what was around. And it'd be a bloody wonder if they weren't attacked, the woman leading the blind man carrying the lame woman.

But maybe the rain kept the attackers away, because Buffy only had to stop a couple of times to fend off attackers, and Spike was pretty sure it was only animals. Maybe an acid-spitting squirrel pack or something.

Spike's side started bleeding again, carrying Buffy's little pet, but he didn't say anything until they were inside and Buffy let him rip off the blindfold. They were standing in an inner hallway of what looked like it had been an ordinary house, but the walls were straight and the ceiling didn't sag, which would have been a clue even before Buffy pulled aside the cover and revealed the gaping hole that undoubtedly led down into the secret government installation they called home.

"You're going to have to take Ennis while I guard," Buffy said.

"Nothing doing, Slayer," Spike said. "You're gonna help me down first, and after that you'd better go back for the bloody woman so she doesn't give us away. Me first."

"You first? You are so selfish."

Casually, Spike turned to display the slash in his side. "After everything I've done, aren't you willing to save me too?" he asked.

"God, Spike, you're really hurt."

"I've seen worse," Spike said. "Come to think of it, that was all your fault. This is nothing."

"Don't give me that." Was the Slayer actually angry? "We can't afford to get hurt, not while we're living in hell and things don't heal."

"Vampire," Spike said casually. "It'll heal."

Buffy took a deep breath. "We're all going down together. I'll help you, you help me, we all help Ennis."

Spike rolled his eyes. "You're making it twice as hard on yourself as you have to," he said, but he was gratified. Buffy Summers didn't do anything half way, and apparently he did rate saving.

It was awkward, and annoying, and it took about five times as long as it should have, and Spike dripped around five times as much blood into the bottom of the shaft as he felt comfortable with. Blood was life, and it wasn't like he was getting any of the good stuff, living here. But they made it to the bottom eventually, and Spike held Ennis and clung to the side while Buffy dropped the last bit. Then he dropped Ennis to her.

"Thanks," Buffy said.

Maybe she would have caught him too, but he wasn't gonna test that. He dangled until she moved out of the way, and then dropped, grunting as he hit. Damn that hurt.

They'd come down right around the big open area where the livestock was kept, and all around the edges, canned goods and packaged food was stacked, enough to last...better not to think about that, at least if you were human. But then, the cows looked scrawny too, and he was living on cow blood.

Some shortcut. He'd thought this place was inaccessible, deep within the secret tunnels. The way she'd been taking him every other time must have taken them miles out of their way.

"Buffy?" Cordelia said, popping up from behind a stack of crates. "Did you just say thanks to a vampire?"

"Yeah, I guess I did," Buffy said.

"He's still evil," Cordelia said.

"You're still stating the obvious," Buffy said. "What's going on, Cordelia? Why are you here?"

"Oh God, I know." Cordelia shifted to complaint mode without hesitation. "It smells like manure, and I've been here forever, but Faith's on the rampage again, so I'm doing Xander a favor and letting you know. He's holding her off with his vast powers of misunderstanding, but you know that's not gonna last forever. It'll just seem like it."

"Thanks, Cordelia," Buffy said dryly.

"You'd better not let her see that you're dragging in strays she hasn't approved of," Cordelia added. "Unless you can make her think it was her idea. But usually the ones Faith rescues look like they're gonna be useful."

"I'll...get Agent Finn to sign for her," Buffy said. It was like you could _see_ her wilting, just thinking about the other Slayer. Diminished by being back home. But then, this wasn't really anyone's home. It was a safe place in a time when safety didn't exist, a gathering of allies with different goals. Which was just another way of saying that most of them hated each other for one reason or another.

And that applied to Spike most of all, the vampire who had sat there while Angelus sent the world to hell. He'd told them often enough that if he'd had the use of his legs, it never would have happened, and the proof that they believed him was in their acceptance of him as an ally.

The proof that not everyone believed him was in the chains he was supposed to be inhabiting right now, to placate the other Slayer, the one who everyone admired and no one liked.

"You do that," Cordelia said. "But you'd better catch him before Faith gets to him on her feelgood tour of every soldier in the place."

Buffy opened her eyes wide. "That was mean," she said admiringly.

"Faith makes it easy," Cordelia said.

Buffy sighed.

"But not when she's around," Cordelia conceded. "Which she will be if you don't hurry."

"You heard her," Buffy said, glaring at Spike. "Run. I'll get Ennis settled in."

Spike rolled his eyes and lurched off at an uneven pace half way between a rush and a fall.

"No," Buffy decided. "Cordelia will get Ennis settled in. I'll make sure you get back in your chains before Faith notices something's wrong."

"Me?" Cordelia squeaked, but Buffy had already hauled Spike's arm over her shoulder and taken off at a genuine run, dragging him along with her.

"Bloody hell, Slayer, mind the hole in my side," Spike said in between jostles. "Just because it'll heal doesn't mean you should make it worse."

"Shut up, you're distracting me," Buffy said, pushing him past the spindly cattle. "I know you're only a vampire, but try to keep up."

Anger gave him energy. They quickly left the lighting in the big area behind, speeding down dim corridors lit only by the glow from a million sparks of fire that ignited and then burned themselves out almost instantly. Hellfire. Just another little reminder of where they were.

Soon Buffy was breathing hard. Spike wasn't breathing at all, but still the stench of sulfer filled his nose, burrowing up as if it would drill into his brain. The lower levels of this complex were drowned in sulfer pools and the fumes got everywhere.

No wonder the Slayer was gasping for breath, her chest moving up and down, convulsively swallowing as her throat dried out from the harsh harsh air. Her pulse pounded, and he imagined how easy it would be to stop running and twist and pull her down and bite her just where the artery surfaced below the skin.

Could he kill her? Would she be surprised?

Against the flickering light, Buffy's face was grim. He stumbled, and she dragged him until he regained his feet.

Not very, he decided. Funny how she could support him and keep him at a complete disadvantage at the same time, with the stake in her sleeve rubbing against his back like a constant reminder that if she wanted to make a fight of it-

He'd lose. He was barely keeping up, stumbling over obstacles the Slayer bounded over. But some day. Some glorious day.

"What's wrong with Spike?" the prissy Watcher said as soon as he saw them. "Don't tell me he's drunk. Buffy-"

"Look who's talking," Spike jeered. After all, when he'd stumbled across Rupert Giles for the first time in hell, it'd been in a bar, and Spike wasn't the only one who'd been having something to dull the hell.

"He's hurt," Buffy said. Her voice rasped.

Spike groaned, mostly for the fun of watching the Watcher try to decide if he was concerned or relieved.

"He'll live," Buffy added carelessly. "Giles, Faith?"

"You look like something the hellcat dragged in, both of you," Giles said, leading the way into Spike's cell, a converted office. It contained a grey metal desk, a wheeled office chair, a whiteboard, and a set of chains fastened to the concrete wall. "Put him down, Buffy, Xander and Willow are showing Faith the mushroom garden. God, you reek."

"It's getting worse," Buffy said, sliding away from Spike. "What I wouldn't give for a shower."

"Wouldn't we all," the Watcher said.

Like a well trained monkey, Spike sat down in the desk chair and held out his wrists. There were scabs where the chains had rubbed, but Giles fastened the chains tightly. More scarring to come, but the Watcher wasn't one to take chances. Every time this happened, Spike wondered if it was bloody worth it.

"Faith won't notice, she'll assume you've been out foraging," Giles said. "Perhaps you'd better stay and give Spike his blood. He's got no reason to smell of the outside."

"Okay, you go fetch it and I'll stay and stink," Buffy said. Giles hesitated, then shook his head left the room muttering about nothing he could do.

Buffy had time to catch her breath before Faith appeared, all strut and fake smiles.

"Oh, hey B. You look like hell. But I guess you deserve it."

Buffy hung her head.

"Well, if it isn't Miss Congeniality."

"Well, if it isn't the vampire who wanted to save the world," Faith said. "How's that going for you? Changed your mind yet?"

"I've got no bloody choice," Spike said. "Hell sucks."

"That's kinda what hell's supposed to be like. And kinda what you're supposed to like too. I don't get you, what kind of vampire are you?"

"Funny, I was under the impression that you knew everything," Spike said.

"Hey, vampire-"

"I guess you talk a good game, but your inexperience is showing." Spike said. Force of habit. Couldn't let a bloody Slayer get the upper hand, especially this one, she was just a big pile of fear and insecurity. If it was just her, he'd have killed the bitch already. Faith was impulsive, and the chains wouldn't stop anything. He could draw her in and when the dust cleared it wouldn't be his. He'd bloody bet his unlife on it.

Faith produced a stake from somewhere. "Hey mister, you don't want to get me mad, because unlike B. here, I take my job seriously. And that includes killing the vampires, and right now I'm telling you I'm just raring for a fight."

Spike grabbed a handful of chain - the better to choke her with, just in case - and waited for the intervention. Buffy, however, was studying the floor. Bloody hell, so much for allies.

Faith moved forward and Spike slipped into game face. But before the big showdown could begin, Giles and Willow entered the room. "Faith, I think you'll be interested to know- What's this?"

"What does it look like?" Faith asked.

"Buffy?" Giles said.

Buffy looked up with a start, and seemed surprised when she noticed the stake, the attitudes of readiness, and Willow and Giles standing behind like a Greek chorus.

"Oh, I was ... thinking," Buffy said. "Distracted. Sorry. Faith, you can't kill Spike, he's our ally."

"Ally, my ass. How long does it take you to pump the guy for information? And even though I've gotta admit the vamp's pretty good on the eyes, I'd better not find out you're-" Faith's eyes roamed over Spike's body and stopped with a thud on a certain place on Spike's side. Damn.

"Is that blood?"

"It's probably ... strawberry jelly?" Willow offered hopefully.

"If we had strawberry jelly, we wouldn't be starving around here," Faith said. "So where did the vampire get all bloody? And wet? And he smells like-"

"That's me," Buffy offered, a bit to cheerily.

"No," Faith said. "You've been lying to me. You, you not-the-real-never-been-killed-Slayer, and the rest of you can't-survive-on-your-own tag alongs - you group of let-the-apocalypse-happen-on-your-watch losers, you've been lying to me. Me, the real Slayer. After everything I've done for you!"

"You've done nothing for me," Spike said, rattling his chains.

"You don't count, vampire." Faith barely gave him a glance before her gaze centered on Buffy. "Do you think you're the Slayer around here, B.? Do you? After you sat here moaning about your boyfriend while the world ended? I shoulda known expecting anything much from you goddamned passle of losers was too much to ask."

"As Watcher, I feel I should point out that these are special-"

"You're not my Watcher," Faith said flatly.

Giles was either a brave man or stupid, Spike wouldn't take a bet on which. "Certainly, but in the absence of-"

"You're not my Watcher," Faith repeated with concentrated menace.

"Quite," Giles said. Buffy wouldn't meet Faith's eyes, and Willow had been trying to find something else to look at for the last five minutes.

Faith started pacing, slapping her stake against her free hand. "I oughta throw you losers out, every single one of you. You've got no idea, do you? You talk about allies, but what are you even trying to do? Save the world? It's too late for that, you can't even save yourself, it took me coming in and finding this place for you before you got rounded up and sold as slaves. And you're willing to endanger my work-"

"But Faith-" Buffy started. Faith caught her eye and held it until Buffy got that look in her eyes, the lost look. She didn't look away, but she might as well have, she didn't have what it took to argue with Faith, and Faith knew it. And proved it, over and over again.

"Repeat after me. The only thing that matters is food and safety. And we're gonna stay safe, and then maybe someday, when we're safe, we'll think about saving the world. I'm not against saving the world, but we're all friends here, we're a team, and the team comes first. Right?"

"We're sorry, Faith," Willow said meekly.

"Repeat after me."

Spike would give the other Slayer credit, she had the chutzpah to pull it off. Even the Watcher mumbled along.

"Good," Faith said, and slid her stake into her boot. It wasn't like there was any other article of clothing was loose enough to hold it. Her jeans were especially tight, and she wiggled her butt in those tight jeans as she straightened.

"I didn't mean it when I called you losers," she said. "You're doing a good job with the mushroom farm, Willow. And Giles, right on with the suggestions for foraging. I found cans in a bunch of places you suggested, last time I went out."

"I'm glad to be of help," Giles said. Willow nodded eagerly. Buffy looked a bit like she was waiting for something that wasn't coming. Faith smiled brilliantly and Willow, and then at Giles.

"So we're cool, right?"

-.-.-.-.-

Faith left without staking Spike, but everyone else seemed to take it for granted. Easy for them. The only reason Spike was here was because he wanted to live in a different world and they were the only ones who weren't Faith-like in their just trying to survive, but sometimes they got caught up in their own bloody issues and it was up to Spike to get things back on track.

"I know I messed up," Buffy said. "But I'm trying to make it better. Doesn't that count for something?"

"Faith is under a lot of stress," Giles said. "And she doesn't have anything like your level of experience with being the Slayer. We must try to..."

"Yeah, yeah," Spike said. "The bint's a fighter, had to have been to have got all the way here from the other end of the country, but she's got no drive beyond that. Not like us planners here. She's not much of a planner, your Faith, is she? Just wants to make the best-"

"Takes one to know one," Giles murmured, his eyes on Buffy, who was biting her lip.

"Hey, I'm here, aren't I?" Spike said. "That shows a hell of a lot of long term planning, sucking up to my enemies - former enemies -"

"Oh, do put a sock in it," Giles said. "When I met you, you were drunk and complaining about Drusilla to anyone who'd listen."

"And about hell. I hate this bloody hell like I've never hated anything before in over a hundred years. Only reason I'm here with you lot. Angelus was a right pillock-"

Buffy looked up.

"-to think for a sodding second that hell would be worth living in. Forced me to come _here_ to save the bloody world, and it's a funny day when a vampire's more eager than a Slayer."

Giles said deliberately, "We all know that you're the definition of a loose canon, Spike. Don't try to make a virtue of it."

"Just looking for the respect I'm due," Spike said. "Was it you who went out and killed a dragon today? No, it was-"

"Me," Buffy said. "And you know what? It doesn't matter what happened or whether I failed, I did it because the world needs saving, and that's what a Slayer does. First responsibility. And I'll take all the help I can get." She fixed first Giles and then Spike with her Slayer-powered glare. "So quit squabbling and let's get to work."

There was a gleam of satisfaction in Giles' eyes as he turned away to fiddle with his glasses, and Spike wondered for the first time whether the reason he'd picked up a vampire with a grudge in a sleazy bar was less to do with what the vampire could do than with what the vampire could provoke in his Slayer.

Crafty bloke, that Watcher.

Buffy continued, "We've got the ingredients for the first spell, so now casting it, that's on you, Will."

Willow nodded seriously. "I'm not afraid of Faith," she said.

"And after that, it's time to start thinking about what we're going to do next. That means hitting the books, and we're gonna need everyone who can read." She fixed a glare on Spike. "That means you, too. Everyone contributes."

Spike rolled his eyes to show how excited he wasn't. "You want me to read spellbooks?"

"I'll bring you your share later," Buffy promised. She glanced at Giles, but he'd returned without Spike's blood. "Along with your cow's blood."

"Obliged," Spike drawled.

And with that the three of them filed out, leaving Spike with the exciting life of the chained up in a secret government installation. At least he had Buffy feeding him cow's blood to look forward to.


	3. Chapter 3

About 4am by Spike's entirely made up calculations, the first rat fell through the ceiling, bringing down a good chunk of ceiling tile with it. It was about twice the size of a cat, with a tail like a rope and eyes that glowed an eerie green in the darkness. It was stunned by the fall, but only for a second. Squeaking like an overworked wheel, it rushed in to nip at his eyes with teeth the size of razors.

Spike got a grip on the tail and then immobilized it with fangs in the neck. Because hey, fresh from the rat was just as good as cow that was starting to coagulate. Meals delivered fresh on the paw, it wasn't exactly human blood but he could get used to this.

That was when the whole ceiling collapsed.

-.-.-.-.-

They slunk in one by one, stepping over the crumbled ceiling tile and the piles of dead rats. The werewolf first - boy named Oz who took one look at the pile of dead rats and stained ceiling tile and went to fetch a shovel.

Xander and Cordelia next. "We're hiding out," Xander said. "Love what you've done with the place."

"I'll take the chair," Cordelia ordered. "It's the only place that's not bloody."

All the rat blood in his stomach was making Spike feel queasy and intransigent. "Get your own chair," he told Cordelia, and damned if she didn't send Xander for a chair from the next office over.

Giles arrived next, limping, unexpectedly quiet, dragging in chairs for everyone without a word, and then Buffy, covered in a network of scratches.

Then Willow and Faith and arrived, escorted by one of the soldiers. Willow was glowing. Literally. Faith was glowing with rage. She glared at the whole room as if daring anyone to stop her as she dumped a pile of chains on the desk in the middle of the room. The soldier pointed a crossbow at Spike. "One move and you're dust."

"Riley-" Buffy said.

"It has to be done, Buffy."

"Yeah, B. You've shown exactly how far you can be trusted, so your pet vampire has to be restrained by the real Slayer. And if you look at either of us funny, probation's over. You'll be out so fast you'll think it was yesterday."

Buffy looked at Faith, then at soldier boy, then sat back in her chair. Spike didn't have a chance; he seethed as Faith wrapped him in enough chains to restrain a pair of elephants and a hippopotamus.

Faith didn't seem satisfied even then, her fists were clenched so hard it was a wonder her nails didn't rip through her palm. "Faith," soldier boy said gently.

She turned to him, a fleeting moment of openness, vulnerability in her questioning expression. He just looked at her and finally she nodded. With a parting glare, she sashayed out, and the soldier followed, backwards, keeping his crossbow in position the whole time. Practicing for a real retreat, Spike decided.

"Okay, what's this all about, and I'm gonna kill all of you if you don't let me out of these chains," Spike said. "I didn't sign on for this."

"At least she didn't kill you?" Willow piped up.

"What I get for trusting the self proclaimed good guys," Spike said. He rattled his chains, or tried to. They were so tight he couldn't even rattle, and if he wasn't so angry he'd be feeling the pain of them digging into the wound in his side. "Should have know it was too good to be true."

Giles cleared his throat. Without looking at Giles, Buffy got up and went over to Spike. In silence, she picked out one of the links as weakest, then picked up Oz's shovel and tried to break the chain. The shovel bent.

"Oh for goodness sake," Giles said. "Does anyone have a paperclip?"

Spike stared. "Tweed, glasses, you can't mean what I think you mean."

"He had a wild youth," Buffy said. Willow produced a paperclip and Giles picked the lock and Buffy pulled Faith's chains off and threw them into the corner. She frowned at the oozy wounds where the shackles had dug into the skin of his wrists. Hard to fight the rat deluge in chains, but he'd managed.

"Sorry," she said.

Spike was only at a loss for a second, then his natural sarcasm kicked in. "I guess this means you trust me," he said. "I'm touched."

"No, but we had a deal," Buffy said. "And even you don't deserve that."

"Damn right. I'm a bloody volunteer," Spike said. "Thought Slayer Number Two was in the frowning but not killing camp. What changed?"

Everyone looked at Willow.

"And I thought it was the other place that had the angels," Spike added into the silence. Willow's glow seemed brighter than the unreliable lights in the office.

"Willow was trying to make sunlight," Cordelia explained. "It didn't work."

"What for?" Spike asked.

"I needed it for the spell to kill demons. I thought-"

"With that black hole thing up in the sky where the sun ought to be? You didn't think that meant something, like maybe hell doesn't have sunlight?" Spike asked incredulously. When Willow just looked back at him, bewildered and somewhat shell shocked, and no one else seemed inclined to jump in, he added, "Oh, that's right. You haven't seen the thing up in the sky where the sun used to be."

"No, I've seen it. We haven't always lived underground," Willow said. "But I thought-"

"It was a good try, Will," Buffy said firmly. "It's just too bad it turned out to be..."

"Yeah," Xander said. "Too bad you turned out to be the Pied Piper of Hell. Did you see the size of those rats?"

"It's rather a mystery why the spell would have that effect in particular..." Giles said.

"And not a mystery that we're gonna be spending much time fathoming, now that Faith knows what we're up to," Buffy said gloomily. "You know, I really thought basically, deep down, Faith was sorta easy going, but not today."

"Maybe she was terrified," Cordelia said. "I certainly was. We're supposed to be safe here, and Willow goes calling up the glowy-eyed minions of hell, and we're fighting for our lives. We almost went down fighting there, and that's not how I want to die." She paused. "Turn into a non-dying hell creature. Whatever."

"If she was terrified, she's got a weird way of showing it," Buffy said. "I'd have gone with terrifying myself."

"I'm sorta scared of Faith now," Willow admitted.

"If Riley - Agent Finn - hadn't stopped her..." Willow quivered and Buffy's mouth firmed up. "There would have been some Slayer versus Slayer going on. No one threatens my friends and gets away with it."

"Do you think Faith and Finn are... you know?" As everyone turned to stare at Xander, he raised his hands in surrender. "What? A couple. Faith and Finn. It'd explain a lot about Faith's sudden about face if they were sharing more than just face time, and Finn, I bet he likes them strong but clingy... Okay, shutting up now."

"We'd gossip about Faith, but no one wants to get caught gossiping about Agent Finn," Oz said. "It's un-American."

"I think Riley Finn is a stabilizing influence on Faith, and should be encouraged," Giles said. There was a slight pause.

"Yeah, anything that keeps Faith on the path of the not shouting obscenities in our faces is good news in my book," Buffy said. "But..."

Everyone sighed. Shifted in their places. Waiting for someone else to say something.

"Yes, we do have a choice to make," Giles said finally. "If we continue on this path, we go against Faith, and more importantly, we risk losing this refuge."

"So you're giving up?" Spike asked incredulously.

"I didn't say that," Giles said testily.

"Do you think Faith's right?" Willow asked. "Could we survive here, live here forever and be okay? Saving each other?"

"Like hell you could," Spike said. "You'd all be dying inside. That's what hell is. All kinds of ways of dying."

But the others ignored him, like they did.

"The hell demons are getting stronger," Buffy said.

"I must admit, I'm not sanguine about our chances, the longer the hell demons have to consolidate their power," Giles agreed.

"Much though I hate to agree with Spike in any way shape or form, I've gotta admit I'm not so keen on living out my unnaturally elongated and miserable days in hell," Xander said. Maybe there was hope for the boy yet.

"I'm with Xander," Cordelia put in. But Spike had always known there was hope for Cordelia.

"Does anyone disagree?" Giles asked.

Willow looked wistful but didn't say anything. Oz looked serene. Buffy looked grim. And Spike thought of something. "Are you going to expect me to put those bloody chains back on?"

"You can go any time you want to," Buffy said. And being the good guys, they probably wouldn't kill him instead of letting him go. After all, if they let him go, his blaze of glory exit might do them some good.

She studied him thoughtfully. "So is that all it takes to get you to give up? Cause I wish I'd known that sooner..."

"Warms the cockles of my heart, you wanting to keep me around like this," Spike said, but he was really thinking about it.

"So you're staying?"

A fair fight was one thing, risking Faith was another, and there were places he could go. It wasn't like he was human, he could do all right somewhere else. Drinking and waiting for something worse. It was hell, worse was always just around the corner, even for vampires. And he'd done this much for revenge, he'd hate to stop now. But he was only here to end the end of the world.

After a few moments, they took silence for his answer. Or just didn't care that much.

"What now?" Buffy asked. "I mean, it's not like we exactly had a step by step plan even before our first step failed..."

"And most of our best leads are now in books that are covered in rat blood..." Giles said with a grimace.

"And I don't know how to stop glowing, but it's making me really tired," Willow said. "And hungry. Using the magicks makes me hungry."

"Don't talk about food, Will," Xander said. "We're all hungry."

Oz produced half a chocolate bar and handed it wordlessly to Willow.

Cordelia stared pointedly at Xander. Xander tried to pretend he hadn't noticed.

"Well, if this is how it's going to be, I'm definitely not sticking around," Spike said. "I've got a plan-" They all looked at him with something like hope. "Attack everything that moves. Then attack some more. Kill some demons."

"Some plan," Buffy said. "But I know what you mean. We've got nothing here. Even Willow's spell that didn't work was just the first step of a plan that wasn't really a plan at all. But... God, I wish this had never happened. Hell's too big to fight. We'd need an army to even start."

"Hmm," Giles said. And something about his tone made everyone look at him.

"We need an army?" Buffy asked, tentatively.

"Even the army doesn't have an army," Xander objected.

"No," Giles said. "We need a wish."

No one got it. "Explain," Buffy ordered.

"I just happened to be reading about vengeance demons," Giles said.

"Chancy lot," Spike said.

"Yes, thank you," Giles said, meaning the opposite. "But the defining characteristic of a vengeance demon is the granting of wishes. If one had been here now, she could have granted you that wish, and we'd be in a world in which hell had never happened."

"Umm, Giles?" Willow said, quietly.

"No, I'm not suggesting we track down a vengeance demon," Giles said. "For one thing, I have no earthly idea how to find one, and for another, they usually make a point of granting wishes in the worst way possible. It could very easily be out of the frying pan into the fire, as it were. But it made me think that we might be going about this all wrong, trying to fix hell. What we really need is a way to stop Angelus."

"It's a little late for that," Cordelia said skeptically.

"But not if we can find a spell to bend time. Why, there are hundreds of them. Spells to go back in time, or to exchange yourself with a past version..."

It took a moment, as everyone thought about it. Then Buffy looked at Giles like someone who had been granted a second chance beyond hope or expectation. "If we could change the past, we could keep Kendra from being killed."

"Yeah, and two Slayers taking on two vampires at the end..." Xander said enthusiastically.

"I'm not sure..." Giles hesitated.

"But it makes sense," Willow said hopefully.

"Yes, but there are other considerations."

"Maybe I could keep Angelus from kidnapping you," Buffy suggested to Giles. "That would-"

"Not actually solve the problem, just defer it."

"How about two Buffys?" Xander said. "If we send Buffy back, and Buffy's already there, doing what she does, that'd been two Slayers, and we all know that Buffy's got more of the real Slaying stuff than Kendra..."

"Poor Kendra," Buffy said, slumping. Apparently that just reminded her that when it came to Slaying stuff, Faith had them all beat. "Maybe we should send Faith back," she said, with a notable lack of enthusiasm.

"Do we actually trust Faith?" Cordelia asked. "Because if you ask me, that girl's got issues."

"Yeah," Xander said.

"Please, let's not get too far ahead of ourselves," Giles said. "I need to do some research, see what's actually possible..."

"And then we'll act," Buffy said

"Thank God," Spike said.

They talked it over a little more, but Giles was eager to go off and do research and everyone else was starting to wilt - like Buffy said, fighting rats at 4am really cut into your beauty sleep - so the party broke up.

Buffy stayed behind, staring with disdain at Faith's chains. She thought _she_ didn't like them? Spike wasn't sure he'd put up with them, and there was no one here with a crossbow aimed at his heart to help _this_ Slayer.

"I've got an idea," Oz said, turning back. "There's a whole wing that no one uses. Put him there and tell Faith you staked him."

"Good idea," Buffy said, picking up the original loop of chain. Spike hesitated, but he'd gone too far to turn back now. He held out his wrists.

"You scout ahead," Buffy told Oz.

"Sure," he said.

It was quiet enough out in the hallways; everyone was resting after the rat attack, probably. They made it to the new room without any problem. Funny place, under construction, with white ceilings and a whole bunch of wires in the unfinished wall. And a long hallway with all the rooms completely open to it. No walls on that side, but they piled a bunch of random rubble and building material across the gap to block off one room and give Spike some privacy.

After Spike's chains were fastened around some steel girders exposed in the wall, Buffy strode away yawning, but Oz lingered for a second. "Word of advice? Keep quiet if any soldiers come sniffing around. They've got a way of looking at you...like they've got some bad habits when it comes to supernatural creatures."

"Thanks."

"Don't mention it." Oz hesitated, then added, "Especially to Willow."

"Girl's got enough on her mind," Spike agreed.

-.-.-.-.-

"Willow and I have consulted every reference we could get our hands on, and the news is...indifferent. Neither good nor bad, really. Which I think counts as good news."

"What Giles means is that it's not impossible," Willow clarified. "We think."

They'd all gathered in Spike's new cell, far from where Faith might look for them, arranged themselves in a half circle with Spike in the middle (there was some kind of irony in that), and now Giles had taken the floor, standing in the center of the half circle to present. He had a number of books stacked on the floor in front of him, which Spike thought was probably a good sign.

"We think we can do an exchange. It's a balanced spell, and it uses a gateway that's constructed a bit at a time, so it doesn't have to be cast all at once. Willow should be able to manage it nicely."

"It's really clever," Willow said, leaning forward from her place at the edge of the semi-circle. "The gateway is a use of the principle of contagion..." She trailed off because no one looked interested in the details.

"But the bottom line is that even with the gateway, we'd be stretching it to exchange more than two people," Giles said. "And we'll need to send them as close to the event as possible. The mystic resonances act as a strange attractor."

"What's that mean? The event?" Xander asked.

"He means when Acathla swallowed the Earth," Cordelia said impatiently. "Does that mean we can't send Faith back to Sunnydale to help Buffy?"

"Her past self is too far away," Giles said.

"Who wants Faith anyway?" Xander scoffed.

"I wouldn't mind having her help," Buffy said. "But I guess..."

"Since I was right there during the final fight, I believe it makes sense to exchange me," Giles said. "I am in much better shape now than I was after being tortured, and since Willow will be performing the gateway spell alone, I can prepare some spells of my own to aid Buffy in the fight. It might just make the difference."

"You know who could make a bigger difference?" Spike asked.

"No, who?" Giles asked unwarily.

"Me," Spike said. "If I hadn't been in a bloody wheelchair at the time, this whole thing would never have happened. Buffy was giving it everything she had, but she couldn't fight both Angelus and Dru at the same time. I was right there, I saw it, but there was nothing I could do. Change that, and everything changes."

Giles squinted at Spike, uncertain, vaguely uneasy. "But you-"

Spike was pretty sure the Watcher didn't remember much of what had happened, what with his mind being messed with by Dru on top of being tortured and all. Spike pressed forward, giving it all the certainty he had. "I tried to get them to stop, tried to get Dru out of it. Tried to shut you up. Remember?"

"Ye - es," Giles said hesitantly.

"So send me back to do it over again, and I'll make sure hell doesn't happen this time," Spike said. "I'll get Dru out of the way-"

"No no no no no," Xander said. "Why are we listening to this? We're not going to let the fate of the world depend on _Spike_. I won't let you do that."

The babble that followed was everyone trying to say something and no one listening. As it died down, Buffy said, "But what about Kendra?"

"I'm not certain we can go back far enough to save Kendra," Giles said. "Buffy, I'm sorry."

"Not certain means maybe, right?" Buffy said.

"Do you really want to risk..."

"But this whole thing is a risk," Willow said, her face set in a determined expression. "This one could change everything."

"And if I'm too late for Kendra - and you, Giles - then I could fight Angel instead of running back and being too late. Because Spike's right, I've got no chance against both of them, but they split up that night, and Angel was alone."

"Well..." Giles said.

"Buffy's our best bet," Willow said. "We need her to know everything we know now about what happened. So we've got to send her back, and we've got to give her as much time as possible. Then we can send someone else a little later as backup."

"That makes the spell more complicated," Giles said.

"Send me at the same time as Buffy," Spike said. "I wasn't doing anything then, not about to be kidnapped or anything. Just sitting in that bloody chair wishing I could do something."

"No no no no no," Xander said.

"I'd say no too, but I think Xander has it covered," Oz said. So much for the brotherhood of supernatural creatures.

"It would make the spell easier," Willow said reluctantly.

"I admit that I am not the fighter that Spike is, but perhaps we should expand our options and recruit a member of the army?" Giles suggested.

"Do you people want to save the world, or do you want to register your condemnation of vampires?" Cordelia asked in her best disapproval-of-stupidity voice. "Spike's one scary vampire, and he wants to be on our side. Who wouldn't, when the other side is hell? So what's your problem?"

"Trust," Oz said succinctly.

"Like Willow said, sometimes you've gotta take a risk," Cordelia said. "Because if you don't, we're gonna be right back here, wishing we'd made a bigger change."

They all fell silent, digesting that. Spike opened his mouth, and then decided Cordelia was a better advocate than him and closed it again. Buffy noticed, and smirked at him. Bloody girl.

"We don't have to decide right now," Giles said. "We'll send Buffy back, on that we can agree. And as for the rest, we will consider. Are we agreed?"

The ayes had it.


	4. Chapter 4

"If you want to have a chance at saving the world, you've gotta be on your very best behavior from now on," Buffy said. "Because if you're gonna have any hope of getting in on this plan, you'll need our trust- " She squinted at him. "-and a haircut and some bleach. You really don't look much like the vampire who used to be such a threat in his own mind. You're sorta..."

"You're just loving this, aren't you?"

Buffy smirked. "So you want to help me track down some more spell ingredients, or not?"

"Bloody right I'm in," Spike said.

She quirked a brow at him.

"You're not the one who's been on a short chain to a sodding wall for a couple of days while you lot debated," Spike growled. "Wasting one of the only people who dares go out in the hell that is Sunnydale up there. I almost up and left."

"Sorry," she said, all chirpy and cheerful. "At least it gave you time to heal up, because you weren't looking so good. I was worried."

She was loving that, too, and drawing it out for all it was worth. She'd helped him, and by any measure that was points on her side. "Can we get on with it?" Spike said, and that was an admission.

She relented, bringing out a slip of paper and handing it over. "Here, I've got a list."

Finally, something concrete. He scanned the list, and this new spell was ten times the spell that the other one had been, in terms of ingredients. A quick trip to the White Market wasn't going to put a dent in it.

"So where do you want to start?" Buffy asked.

Spike looked it over again,. "I know where to get a few of these things on the low down," he said. "But where I'm going, you'd be pretty hard to explain."

"If you're asking if we trust you, the answer is no," Buffy said. "But-" She hesitated.

"Can't let your morals get in the way of saving the world, and hope's stronger than fear. Gotta take a risk to save the world. Am I right?"

"You've got a weird habit of being right," Buffy said. "It's annoying."

Spike smiled at her.

"Usual rules apply," Buffy said. "Blindfold and scented nose-plug and ear plugs until we're out of here, and then you're on your own. I've got some places to visit that aren't gonna welcome vampires, so we're even. We'll meet at the White Market."

"Got it," Spike said, rattling his chains.

"Now, which of these do you think you can get?" Buffy asked. Apparently, she wanted to spend the whole day coordinating, but Spike was eager to get going.

"Tell you what, Slayer," Spike said. "How about you check out the sources you know about, and I'll run down the ones I do, and we'll see who ends up with more."

Buffy just looked at him.

"What, scared of a little competition?" Spike taunted. Not that it really counted as a competition if no one ended up dead at the end. "Make it interesting. I'll bet you that stake of yours, the one that you keep all safe and special-like, versus my duster that I get more than you."

The stake had belonged to Kendra. There wasn't a chance in hell Buffy'd take the deal - but Buffy surprised him. She smiled and said, "You have not yet seen the shopping-fu of the Summers clan in action. Wait and prepare to be amazed. And to give me your duster."

"Never gonna happen," Spike snarled, suddenly even more eager to get out and raise some Cain for a good cause. Competition in any form: he'd missed it. "Now let's get going. Time's wasting, love." Buffy gave him the stink eye. "Slayer."

-.-.-.-.-

He started off at Joe's, but Joe's wasn't there. Then he tried Len's, and same thing. Lake of fire, no bloody bar, and that was too bad because he needed a drink. He was starting to regret the bloody bet.

There was no help for it, he'd have to go to Petruccio's Poteen Palace. It didn't live up to its name; it was just another underground bar, a little sleezier than some. The same underground bar where he'd met the Watcher, actually, when a some drunken words had gotten him an in with the white hat squad. Funny how things worked out, and here he was back again, but this time with a goal. No mindless drinking, no sitting back watching the fights.

He was taking over.

So he breezed in with a snarl on his vampire face, and headed directly to the bar and ordered whiskey and blood. Then he turned to assess the competition. The place was crawling with demons. The demon hunter contingent that Giles had been out on the town with that night was not showing today - probably been driven out, no surprise there. Because the place was filled with some of the nastiest demons and vampires around.

The main vampire contingent was headed by a skinny teenager who usually called San Diego her kingdom. Three hundred years worth of scrabbling her way up to the top, first on the East Coast, then out in California - but Spike could take her. She had her minions cowed, waiting on her pleasure. Good for her. The rest of the vampires were the loners, singles and pairs spread out and jockeying for a place. Spike recognized a bunch of them too, and most of them didn't belong in Sunnydale.

The ones that did... Spike spotted a couple of Angelus's minions. Good. Let them watch and bring the news back to Angelus. Spike was back, and he wasn't deferring to anyone.

The demons were a bit more complicated. No one was gonna mess with the Kuauracku demons, but they weren't gonna pay any attention to anyone who wasn't a Kuauracku either. The Ssssisssoo had a angry eye on the Tlep, the Tlep was slavering over the family of Shenjosa, they'd better watch out there, but the Shenjosa were either celebrating or mourning, and either way they were the loudest and the most oblivious of the major demons.

The minor demons fit themselves into the gaps, keeping the peace and sucking up. He knew a few of them, but most of them weren't from around- His gaze sharpened on a pair of demons he recognized. They might have seen him here a couple of times, all maudlin and cursing Drusilla and hell and anything that came to mind. They might have bought him a few drinks and made bets on how long it'd take him to get to the singing phase. And he might have let them.

One of them nudged the other and they both turned to smirk at him. Thought they knew what he was here for, and that wouldn't do. Spike tossed back his blood whiskey and sauntered over.

"Spike! Buddy!" the first demon said. The light gleamed off the sleek purple feathers along the dome of his skull, and his crackled blue skin stretched unpleasantly into a crooked smile. Spike pushed between him and his friend, and the demon twitched nervously.

"It's been weeks," the second demon said. His skull feathers were orange, his skin yellow. "Buy you a drink?"

Spike grinned, savoring the moment.

"Buy you two drinks?" The demons both started to edge away. "Three-"

Spike punched the first one and then turned on the second one as he was turning to flee and punched him too. They both went flying - light as a pair of birds - across the room and landed in the middle of the group of Shenjosa. Damn, he'd been aiming for the Ssssisssoo.

No time for regrets. The Shenjosa converged on the feathered demons, the Tlep grabbed one of them while they were distracted, and Spike grabbed the Tlep. Target of opportunity. He knocked the Tlep on the head and left it dazed, and as the Shenjosa ran back to its family Spike turned on the Ssssisssoo.

Too late. It had moved out of range.

Spike brushed a few minor demons out of his way, threw a Shenjosa that tried to tackle him, got bit by something down around floor level - bloody hell that hurt - and then the Ssssisssoo landed a kick that doubled him over just before one of the freelance vampires took advantage of the opportunity and attacked the Ssssisssoo from behind.

After that, it was a free-for-all. More kicks and punches flying per square foot of floorspace than any bar fight Spike had seen in a long time, and he got his fair share in. More than his fair share, until he almost forgot what he was here for, lost in the dance.

He found himself washed by the currents of the fight into a backwater, the gap between the fight and the massive Kuauracku. Nobody bother the Kuauracku, even the Ssssisssoo and the Tlep, fighting to the death nearby, kept a safe distance. Old grudge, Spike decided, and grabbed an abandoned drink from the bar near the Kuauracku.

He almost choked on it when the Tlep knocked into him, and in that split second he saw an opening that led to exactly what he wanted and he bloody well took it. Sidestep and push, and the Tlep went stumbling past him into the Kuauracku.

The Kuauracku roared. Everything stopped.

As a room full of demons and vampires fighting turned into a room full of demons and vampires backing away, the Kuauracku turned and crushed the Tlep. One massive fist pounding a demon into the floor. Then the Kuauracku turned back to its drink.

The fight was over. After that, no one really wanted to get back to ordinary brawling.

"That could have turned out badly," Spike muttered to himself. Kuauracku on a rampage, bad news. He hadn't even noticed the risk, just the opportunity, and now that it'd paid off, he turned to the Ssssisssoo.

The Ssssisssoo had seen what had happened, good. "Killed your enemy for you," Spike said.

"I owe you a debt," the Ssssisssoo said, and Spike grinned. More than one way to skin a Ssssisssoo, and he'd missed out on the defeating it in combat way, but killing its enemy was almost as good. And the Ssssisssoo were notorious hoarders, both of information and of items of value. This was going to be good.

"I'll tell you what you can do for me," Spike said.

Arrangements with the Ssssisssoo settled to both their satisfaction, Spike found that he'd acquired a following. The two feathered demons had survived the fight by jumping up into exposed pipes in the ceiling, and they had friends who also wanted to congratulate Spike on his definite not-loss of the big fight.

Spike sent the weak ones off for drinks and told the rest to follow him while he made a circuit of the room. Amazing how many demons and vampires were willing to do you a little favor when you'd just beat most of them up consecutively or concurrently and had a bunch of demons following you around. Even the San Diego vampire queen detached a few of her minions to run an errands for him. Sign of respect, and he bloody well deserved it, but he made sure to show her a little respect too. She bloody well deserved it too. He'd seen what she'd done to one of the Shenjosa.

It took a while to arrange everything, information and errands and items crossed off the list, but at last he settled in back at the bar with another whiskey and blood and the contented feeling of a job well done.

"Do you want to know what I've been thinking ever since I saw you come in with that shit-eating grin on that wicked face of yours?" One of the vampires who'd been drinking alone slid in next to Spike. Her hair was pulled back into a sleek knot at the nape of her neck, and she was wearing a sundress, which was an ironic choice for a vampire.

"Where's Drusilla? That's what I've been thinking, and if you tell me you finally got fed up and killed her I won't wonder one bit, sweetie."

Spike didn't recognize her. "It's Millie," the vampire said. "Now I know I've been out of touch with the wider world for a while, that's life in the boondocks, honey, but..." She tilted her head to the side provocatively and waited.

"I heard you'd taken over a town in Canada," Spike said, remembering who she was just in time. Think fast, prove you'd been around for long enough to remember, long enough to keep score. The _other_ vampire game.

"You do remember me! It's Montana, but close enough."

And he was already a few points behind, but Spike didn't actually play this game. Never had, and he bloody well never would. "Enjoy the fight?" he asked instead. He'd seen her get a few blows in, now that he thought about it. "You owe me a drink," he added. A blatant lie.

She raised a hand and placed an order without quibbling. She was drinking brandy and AB positive, a complex drink that she sipped and smiled.

"After your performance, I thought for sure we'd see Drusilla waltzing in to take her share of the laurels," Millie said. "And her share of the decision making. You're recruiting, right?"

He could see how she'd got that impression. "No." Off her look of disbelief, he added, "I'm working alone."

"You mean to tell me that Dru's not around here somewhere? And that you're not Angelus's bully boy? I hear it's King Angelus now." She paused, measured out her words carefully. "I guess that explains the hair, sweetie, I _was_ wondering why Dru put up with it."

Spike couldn't help it; he put a hand to the tangle of hair that hadn't seen bleach or product in too long. And her eyes sparkled with amusement. He slammed his fist into the table. "King of the Ninnies," he snapped. "Because only a ninny would think Angelus had any business being king of anything. I left him and Dru to it months ago. I'm working alone, and if you're in favor of living in this bloody stupid hell like _King Angelus_, then-

She kicked him in the shin. Barely hard enough to hurt, but he was so startled he stop for just long enough to give her an opening. "I'm no fan of hell. That town in Montana? Home sweet home for a hundred years? It's under thirty feet of lava, and I'm not real happy about that. But honey-"

He slammed a punch into her shoulder, and she took it without flinching or stopping the flow of words.

"-don't try to play me for a rube. I've seen you in action, Calcutta, 1887. I know your modus operandi, and it involves a woman. You need to lay your bright deeds at her feet."

"Not anymore," Spike said. "I'm working alone now. I'm doing something worthwhile, not fiddling around while hell burns everything worth living for to cinders."

She gave him a knowing look. "So who's the replacement? The new woman?"

For one instant, an image of a pert blond slayer popped into his head. He slapped that thought down before he could really think it, his face sliding into a show of ugly vampiric anger. "If you think you're gonna apply for the job, I can knock that idea right out of your sodding head," he snarled.

She met him, her eyes glowing golden and her fangs showing as she said, "The job I came here to apply for, the thing that's got this whole town full, that job's with Angelus, not you."

"Angelus is recruiting?" Spike asked, flat out flabbergasted to hear it. That prancing ponce with his crown and his decadent court...

"Maybe you don't realize it, but things are bad, Spike. Very bad. And Sunnydale - King Angelus - that's the only place on this whole continent where us demons have any hope. Angelus is gathering an army to fight and that's why I'm here."

"Angelus? Fighting against hell? He's the one who bloody stuck us all here in the first place."

"Maybe so, but everyone's getting desperate. You know that - you took advantage of it quickly enough to start a fight. Sunnydale is a powder keg just waiting to blow, filled with vamps and demons who haven't established a pecking order. We don't know each other, but sweetie, we've all heard about Angelus."

"Stupid bloke can't be anything but number one," Spike grumbled. "Number one moron, if you ask me."

"Number one hope when there isn't anything else. He controls the earth and the sky and even the hell-lords pay attention to him. Honey, the way things have been going, that means something. When's the last time you saw a healthy meal?"

"Been busy," Spike said defensively, thinking about the two bars that had closed in the last couple of weeks. Shut down by the hell demons, most likely. They didn't like fun. And if Sunnydale was doing better than most places, that didn't say anything good. "Besides, Sunnydale's always been a powder keg. Place was on the hellmouth before it was in hell."

"Tell me the truth, Spike, what's got you so tied up that you're completely oblivious to what's going on in your own little town? What else could possibly be going on that more important?"

He drew himself up. "I'd like to tell you, but it's a secret," he said.

She leaned in. "You can tell me. I'll never tell."

"Really? Because I seem to remember-"

Now she was playing up to him, not against him. "I'm the very soul of discretion, without the soul, of course."

He laughed, enjoying the attention. "I can tell you this much. I'm working with a very powerful witch, and if what we're doing pays off, anything Angelus is doing will look like a grain of sand next to Mount Rushmore. Only they'll have to call it Mount Spike."

"You boys do like your grandiose plans," she said. "A witch? And let me guess, it's something that our hellish overlords wouldn't approve of."

"Approve? They'd piss in their pants if they knew what was in store for them," Spike said.

She leaned in even closer, and Spike was happy to play her little game. They fenced back and forth, her teasing, him holding back, until Spike's temporary minions started returning.

"You get back to your mysteries," she said. "But if you really mean it about setting the hell demons back-"

"I've never wanted anything half as much as I want to send the bloody hell demons back to the bloody hell they came from, and get hell off this earth."

"-then if you ever do get to recruiting for this mysterious project of yours, look me up first, you hear?"

Spike looked at her, all perfectly groomed, but he didn't make the mistake of underestimating her. "I'll do that."

-.-.-.-.-

Spike was the first back to the meeting place, and he was strutting when he knocked the knock that let him into the White Market. He didn't have everything on the list, not by a long shot, but this was a long term list, and there was no way the Slayer was gonna beat him on the day's-

He stopped before he fell through the floor.

And stared.

"Spike. You're blocking the-"

"Hello, blondie," Spike said, moving aside so she could stare too.

"What's that?" she asked, sounding stunned.

"Well, it's either the forces of hell sending a message, or someone's gonna be mightily pissed at whoever let their pet fireball loose in the market," Spike said. "I'm betting on the first."

They started some more. The fire crackled and part of the ceiling collapsed and disappeared into the fire. It burned to ash in a few seconds, and the fireball seemed a tiny bit bigger afterwards.

"We'd better go before we become part of the message," Buffy said.

"Right," Spike said. "Nothing for us here."

It was bloody Angelus's fault, Spike thought as he followed Buffy through the market. Starting a bloody war. That message is for him, and for any Earth-type demon around. We know where you buy your supplies. We know where the little pockets of Earth remain, the ones you thought were safely hidden away, and we can take them out any time we want.

The whole market was subdued. Only the slave market had a crowd. Angelus sure knew how to make things sodding worse.

"We don't have a lot of time," Buffy said, from the stew of her own thoughts. She was frowning.

"You noticed that, did you?"

"Everything's getting worse. Fast. If we don't hurry, we won't have any chance at all." She glared at him like it was his fault. "So I hope you got your share of the ingredients for the magics, cause you've gotta do your share if this is gonna work."

Spike sauntered, bearing her glare with insouciance. "That and we had a bet on, pet. Remember? Or do you want to forget because you couldn't find much?"

"I found plenty," Buffy said.

"Oh yeah?"

And then they were hurrying away, faster and fast, but not to get away from what they'd just seen - oh no - but to get in among the acres of empty houses where they could break down a door and compare their hauls, both completely certain they'd won the bet. And completely serious about winning, too.

"What?" Buffy said when they'd tallied everything up. "The only reason you won is because you're evil," Buffy claimed.

"Never denied it," Spike said smugly. "And I'm not the only one."

"But you can't trust evil," Buffy said.

"Speak for yourself."

"And speaking for myself, I just remembered one more thing." Buffy reached into her pocket and carefully drew out a gold necklace with a enamel pendant. Cheap stuff.

"What's that?" Spike asked, offended. "It's crap."

"I saved a man's life and he gave it to me. It used to be his daughter's."

"That's never on the list," Spike accused. "What are you trying to pull?"

"The whole point of this is to save the world. I saved someone, so on a scale of one to saved, you're a zero and I'm a-"

"Cheater. Just trying to keep your bloody stake." Spike swept his ingredients back into their bag and stood up. "Shouldn't have bet it if you didn't want to lose it."

"Am not," Buffy said. And she wasn't play a game, she sounded completely sincere. "You can have the stake, it's not what's important."

He looked at her suspiciously.

"But I still won."

"Cheater."

They argued all the way back to the point where Spike had to shut up and put on the blindfold. And the nose plugs. And all that crap. And let the bloody Slayer lead him inside like a sheep to the slaughter. He never quit half expecting a stake to the heart at some point in this whole rigamarole, but it didn't come this time either.

And when they were inside, while he was still blindfolded, Buffy handed off something else she had that wasn't on the list. She slipped it into his pocket, and she probably thought he wouldn't notice but he did.

When he was alone, he dug it out.

A bleach kit. Just what he'd need if he was going to go back in time and pretend to be pre-hell Spike.

Bloody Slayer. He didn't know what to make of her.


	5. Chapter 5

You could measure time in the number of times Spike won Buffy's stake, and then number of times she won it back and his duster too. And his cigarette lighter and his tongue once, which wasn't anything like it could have been because she just told him to shut up. But he won her favorite mace, and she was walking around in what were technically his boots for a while, until she won them back. They were a fair match, competition stretching them but neither of them the clear winner no matter how much they tried. And they tried. They brought back enough ingredients to keep Willow going.

And you could measure time in the slow growth of the gateway Willow was constructing. Spike never saw it, but he heard about her progress day by day. And every day Willow walked with a bit more of a stoop to her shoulders.

Because you could measure time in the exhaustion that was overtaking all of them. Willow was the worst. Her bones were showing, her hair was thinning, and she was self-conscious about it. Didn't help that Cordelia still had hair that glowed - probably some sort of dark magic. But even she had eyes that seemed over-large in a thin face. Giles looked like a scarecrow, all flabby skin and bones. The wolf in the wolf-boy was starting to show a little more than was comfortable: some of the others talked in low voices about restraining him, and fell silent when they thought they might be overheard. Only the Slayer looked anything like normal, except for the feverish look in her eyes.

Or you could measure time in the disappearance of all the decent places to go to forget that Earth was Hell. The empty buildings that Angelus's forces razed to provide a safe zone around their headquarters at the old Sunnydale City Hall, now the Sunnydale Palace. The boiling sulfur lake that drowned the high school and a few neighborhoods where humans and vampires had still hid out. The increasing difficulty of going out at all, much less going out and finding actual useful ingredients to fuel Willow's spell.

If that was too bloody depressing for you, you could measure time in the number of times Faith came by and acted like the world's greatest bitch. Spike was out of her range now, presumed dead, but he heard about everything. His cell was to the go place for avoiding Faith, and the others took turns to get out of the line of fire. She usually picked Buffy as her target, but she didn't mind taking a shot at Giles and Xander. She usually left Willow alone, which was lucky because Willow was the one of them who needed the most emotional stability. She was spending all her time on that gateway, and Oz and sometimes Xander and Cordelia were doing all of her work and covering for her with Faith. It never occurred to Faith that meek Willow might defy her.

"Faith is on a power trip," Cordelia said one evening, settling in for a chat after Spike got back from a day of scavenging. Buffy had just left to check in with Faith. "I think the army is rubbing off on her - shut up you -" She slapped Xander lightly. "She's like a wind-up general that goes around saluting and being saluted. Does she really think that makes her in charge? Does she really think that because we smile at her, we actually like her? Because if she does, that's really sad."

"Faith is a figure of inspiration to a lot of people around here," Xander said, mock seriously. "And not even a little bit sad when she's cracking the whip." He cleared his throat. "Did you see how many sand bags I took down to the basement today? Let the waters rise, that basement is going to be the most shored up basement in Sunnydale, and my throat hurts."

"Maybe you should rest it," Spike said. With openings like that, it was just too easy. "And shut up."

"I don't have to listen to you," Xander said, and the final sting on 'you' was too much for that throat of his. He coughed. And then coughed some more.

"Maybe you should listen to Spike," Cordelia said. "I mean, just this once because he's right."

Xander nodded, and eventually the coughs died down and Cordelia returned to the previous topic, because a cough wasn't really unusual enough to spend any time on, especially not when compared to the ever popular grumbling about the boss. "I don't know how Buffy puts up with her."

"It's lucky Faith doesn't mind that Buffy's gone so much," Xander said. Whined, really, and a pathetic noise it was too.

"Not like the rest of you lot under her thumb," Spike put in.

Cordelia said thoughtfully, "Yeah, I guess not being around that much means that Buffy doesn't hear everything that Faith says."

"That and Buffy has the patience of a saint," Xander said, glaring at Spike.

"And the guilty conscience of a sinner," Spike returned.

"I what?" Buffy said, rounding the corner by the bags of cement. Giles followed close on her heels. She didn't wait for an answer. "Get up, Spike, we're going out again. Willow's almost done, but we need one more thing, pronto."

"And what's that?" Spike asked.

"Angelus's sword."

"The hell we do."

"I'm afraid it is absolutely vital-" Giles started to say.

"Could you excuse me? I'm not ready for more ominous," Cordelia said. "I have had it with ominous of the no-there's-nothing-you-can-do-Cordelia variety. I'm going to go find Xander a cough drop. That, I can do."

"What with her?" Buffy asked.

"She's had a long day," Xander said apologetically, looking after Cordelia like he wasn't sure if he should follow her. Laziness won out, and he sank back into his chair.

"And you interrupted a good complaining session, one of the best," Spike said, holding out his hands to have the chains removed.

Buffy rolled her eyes. "Well, this is important."

"Want me to come with?" Xander asked. "One more..."

Buffy looked at him sadly. His skin was stretched tight over thick knobby bones and his hair straggled in front of his eyes when he hung his head. "Never mind."

"So what's the big need for a sword all of a sudden?" Spike said impatiently. "Last time I checked the list, it didn't include the bloody sword Angelus pulled out of the stone. You mean the one that made him king of all the hellions, right? Acathla's sword?"

"If we had known we needed it, we would have undoubtedly mentioned it," Giles said. "We didn't know until Willow placed the last block in the gateway and the spell failed to make the connection we need. A focus, an item tied to the event we wish to-"

"And you can't use something else?"

"Do you have a suggestion?" Giles asked dryly.

"Would the sword Buffy brought to the fight work?" Spike asked before he remember what had happened to that particular sword. The hell lords hadn't liked it much, so they'd altered it a bit and then got rid of it...

"Do you know where to find it?" Giles said with sudden interest.

"Umm, I left it in the eye of a dragon," Spike said sheepishly.

"Good going, vamp boy," Xander said.

"It wouldn't be as good a choice as the sword that opened hell, in any case," Giles said. "It would do in a pinch, because of the potential it had in those final moments, but it would be a poor second. We have considered other options, but our best chance of success is with the sword that was removed from Acathla by Angelus. It is intimately tied to the onset of hell."

"Can't blame a bloke for asking," Spike said. "So it's Buffy and me off on a quest for the sword formerly in the stone now? We'll bloody well reclaim the golden age of the round table yet!"

"Yes, how very Arthurian," Giles said, giving Spike a narrow-eyed look. For a moment Spike was confused, then he realized that King Arthur might not be what the watcher was expecting from the bloke who used to use railroad spikes for torture.

"Don't know what you're talking about, but I saw a movie once," Spike said, not sure if that made it better or worse.

"I saw that movie," Buffy said. "Did it have that bald guy from Star Trek in it?"

The look on Giles' face was worth it.

-.-.-.-.-

"I bet it's still in the mansion," Spike said. They were on their way out, running as fast as they could through the long hallways. Buffy was breathing hard; Spike was telling her everything he knew. "It's not exactly Angelus's sword, not once the hell demons showed up. They wouldn't let him keep it any more than they'd let him stay at the mansion. That place was Acathla's and that sword...well, they didn't like it much either, but-"

Buffy stopped abruptly and turned off her flashlight. Spike's momentum carried him a few paces past her, but he made them light steps; he could hear what she heard. Faith, around the next corner.

Buffy started backing up, tiptoeing. Spike tried the nearest door: locked. They were in a long corridor that was more like a tunnel than a hallway, and the last cross hallway had been a ways back.

Faith was coming their way, talking to someone else. "...tell me more about..."

Buffy pulled Spike down the hallway. Speed tiptoe.

"...the sunlight across the fields..." It was a guy, must be one of the army blokes. Agent Finn, maybe.

"It sounds really pretty." That was Faith, sincere in a practically panicked sort of way. No wonder: he'd never have thought the bint had it in her, she'd always seemed more the shag 'em and forget 'em type. He'd have bet she didn't have 'really pretty' in her bloody vocabulary, much less spend her time meandering down a hallway and deploying it without irony.

If he and Buffy didn't make it to some kind of cover before the swoony couple rounded the corner, it wasn't because that lot were putting on any speed. In fact, they stopped just before the intersection. Probably looking deep into each other's eyes for the next phase of their relationship, which was the whinging.

"...if I wasn't so _tired_. God, Finn, I just dunno how I'm managing now, and..."

"...price of command. It's okay. I've got your back, Faith. Trust me, it's okay to be scared. We all are."

"Couldn't manage without ya." Very quiet. Then louder: "Thanks."

Buffy kicked, a door swung open, and it'd been such a precision blow there wasn't a lot of noise. She pulled him into the room as Agent Finn said, "What was-"

Buffy pulled the door closed and they were alone in hot darkness. It sounded like a big room. Sort of echoey. Outside, Faith and Agent Finn were trying doors. Inside, Buffy was barely breathing. Spike waited, not breathing at all.

"...probably..." Just a wisp of sound made it in from outside.

"...going..."

"...not..."

They tried the door. Buffy held it closed. Now they were moving away.

"...don't..."

In the darkness behind Spike and Buffy, something moved. Something slithery and very large. And faster than it ought-

Buffy pulled open the door and they both dived through. The slamming door barely missed Spike's foot. Buffy looked around for something to brace it with.

"Here," Spike said, pulling the door across the hallway open, and then with a loud crack, pulling it right off its hinges. Buffy took it, tried to figure out what to do with it as Spike scanned the new room. It was tiny compared to the other room, and no surprises. Just a desk and a bookshelf. Spike slid the bookshelf across the hallway to Buffy, then the desk. She braced the door, bookshelf under the doorknob and the desk holding it in place.

"That'll hold," Buffy said.

They turned toward the lights. No shit, they'd been discovered. Faith and Riley were armed with a stake and a gun, and everything, including their flashlights, was aimed directly at Spike.

"Gotta say, this is a big surprise, B.," Faith said. She didn't sound surprised, she sounded royally pissed off. "Thought you said you staked him."

"Umm," Buffy said.

"Guess I'll have to do the job for you," Faith said, moving in.

Buffy moved in front of Spike. "No. I need him."

"For what?" Faith took a step forward, moving like a fighter. "At this rate, I'm starting to wonder if you ever slayed anything."

"We're gonna save the world," Spike said. Mistake. Faith took another step forward, forcing Buffy back. Forcing Spike back a step.

"We are. We're going to save the world," Buffy confirmed.

"The Big B. B for un-fucking-believable," Faith said. "What do you think you're pulling, B.? 'Cause that's not part of our deal."

"We don't have time for this," Buffy said. She looked at Agent Finn. "Riley?"

"I've got Faith's back," Riley Finn said, his jaw clenched and his gun unwavering.

"He's reliable," Faith said, sort of smug and sort of awed, like she hadn't gotten used to it. "He's really reliable, and I-"

"Look, Faith, I can't tell you the whole story, but we're almost there. We've got an endgame in sight, no more hell, and we just need-"

"Can't do it, B. You know I can't trust you. If you come quietly-"

"Faith, please. As a Slayer, I promise you-"

"I'm the Slayer," Faith said, moving forward again. "You're just some pathetic imitation. Dying that time, it must have weakened the instinct. You don't hold a candle to me."

Buffy looked at Faith scornfully. "When you figure out what it really means to be a Slayer, then you'll understand."

"I don't listen to failures," Faith said.

"In hell, we're all failures, Faith," Buffy said. She looked at Agent Finn, holding his eyes for a moment, and then she kicked Faith into Riley, grabbed Spike's hand, and turned and ran, dragging him after her.

If she hadn't grabbed him, Spike would have stayed and fought till they were begging for mercy.

She must have known that.

-.-.-.-.-

The old mansion was in the part of town that wasn't actually town any more. The line of demarcation was abrupt, on one side the the decayed town creaked and rattled as the wind whistled through. On the other side, the wind blew unimpeded over very fine sand: treacherous dunes undulating across the landscape, bubbling in places as if it the ground were boiling. The smell of sulfur was very strong.

The hell lords' palaces were in the center, dark bulging growths that marred the smooth surface of the sand. In other areas, skeletal men and woman coughed and moaned and toiled, raking and hoeing the sand and planting jagged teeth in the ground.

Except for them, pathetic sods, there was no one around. This was the extra-concentrated version of hell. Vampires stayed away. Demons stayed away. And the hell demons didn't seem to be around. Spike had been expecting at least some guards around the perimeter to keep watch over the slaves, but nothing.

Spike and Buffy just trudged across the sand and right up to the only building left in this wasteland.

"I came here to fetch Dru a couple of times," Spike said, as they stood outside, peering at the windows, both of them obscurely reluctant to actually go any further. "When I was still in my wheelchair, before I left that lot forever, and let me tell you, trying to cross sand in a wheelchair? Now that is hell. But inside here, it's like a bloody museum. A monument to the dawn of hell in all its sodding stupidity... They didn't even clean up after Dru where she threw up after trying to eat one of the hell demons."

"Where do you think they are?" Buffy asked.

"The hell demons? Hell if I know," Spike said. "But I bet I know who does," he added with a bit of relish.

"Who?"

"Angelus. Bet they're harrying his flank right now, or whatever it is you do to your enemy." He was a bit foggy on that.

"Yeah," Buffy said vaguely, and then straightened up, raising her chin and clenching her fists. "Come on," she said. "Let's go."

She marched right in like she was daring anything that might be lurking inside to attack her, and Spike followed at a slower pace. Let her do all the exploring, and he'd be backup in case she found anything dangerous.

The room seemed to echo with memories, none of them good. It smelled like hell, but Spike thought he could still smell Dru. And Angelus.

Buffy had stopped and was staring at the bloodstain in the corner. No one had ever even wiped it up, so it was thick and brown and cracked. Her blood, where Angelus had run her through a few times with her with her own sword while Dru held her tight, just before Angelus had tossed aside Buffy's sword and pulled the sword from Acathla and hell descended.

While Angelus was watching hell spread with an orgasmic expression on his moronic face, Buffy had gotten away.

"The sword's over here," Spike said. As he walked past Buffy, he glanced back and saw that there were wet streak running down her dusty cheeks.

"There, there," Spike said awkwardly. "We're gonna show them, right?" Couldn't stand a woman crying. Waste of perfectly good water.

"Right," Buffy said, and pushed past him to the casket containing the sword, shooting a narrow-eyed look at Spike as she did. Well, he hadn't been much help to her then, had he? In the wheelchair, aching from the beating Angelus had given him just before Buffy showed up, he'd seen it all and done nothing.

He hadn't warned Angelus that Buffy was getting away, though. That ought to count for something...but he wasn't sure what.

A tiny tremor - the sort of thing that reminded you this was still California, even if it was hell - broke Buffy's reverie and she leaned forward and casually broke the glass and pulled the sword out. It fit in her hand like it belonged, and the expression on her face was such a private thing that Spike had to look away. He wander toward the window and caught sight of a couple of Dru's dolls fallen on the floor. "She was always leaving thing behind," he said, only after he said it realizing that it could apply to him as easily as to anything else.

When he glanced back, Buffy was wrapping the sword in a fallen curtain, her expression set and closed.

"That sword," Spike said. "You know Angelus wanted to keep it, but the hell demons wouldn't let him?"

That distracted her, and she looked up, a tiny hint of a smile forming around the edges of her mouth. "He must just hate that they put it in a glass casket like a museum. Like he was just incidental, and the sword was the thing. Anyone could have done it."

"Yeah, anyone could have done it," Spike agreed, unenthusiastically. He picked up the doll, and then set it back again.

Buffy looked at Spike with an odd look on her face.

"Oh, hell," Spike said, disgusted. "Just say what you mean."

"Did you love her?"

"Does it matter?" Spike countered.

Buffy glanced back at the pool of dried blood. The earth shook again beneath their feet. "I guess not," she admitted.

As they turned to go, the sky roared like thunder. "Bloody great," Spike muttered. "Last thing we need is to be wet, too." But then they heard shouting, and more roaring, and when they looked out the window the sky was filled with giant winged creatures - bigger than dragons - wheeling and circling and breathing fire at the ground.

"I think we're about to find out what Angelus and the hell demons are up to right now," Buffy said.


	6. Chapter 6

The ground shook again, harder, like it had something against people standing upright.

"Scepter of earthquakes," Spike muttered. "That was Dru's." He paused, then added, annoyed, "We should have known this was too easy. There should have been guards. They were trying to draw that lot in, and we just waltzed into the middle of it."

"If you're done being pessimistic-" Buffy stopped.

"Don't have a plan either, do you?" Spike said, grimly amused.

"Let's go somewhere with a better view and try to figure out what's going on," Buffy said.

From up on the roof, crouching behind the chimney, they could see a giant crack in the earth where all the sand had drained away, leaving behind bare jagged rock. In the far distance, where the crack angled sideways and the bottom of the crack could be seen from where they were, tiny human-shaped figures crawled along. Angelus's troops. Deep in the crack, they were out of range of the winged creatures that ruled the sky with their fire.

If the direction of the crack was any indication, there were only two places they could be heading: toward the lumpish palaces of the hell lords, or toward the areas where slaves were laboring. Spike stared until he saw movement near the slaves.

"What's he want with them? He's not going to eat these stick figures, is he?" Spike asked, horrified.

"I heard he's fattening them up," Buffy said in a low voice.

"Well he'd bloody well have to," Spike said. When she didn't reply he looked over and found her in a brown study. "Buffy?"

He nudged her and she glared, but her heart wasn't really into it. She didn't hate him, she hated _them_. Hell and Angelus, both of them equally. Next to them, he was practically good. "See that crack over there?" Spike said, nodding in the opposite direction from the foray below. "If we get there, we can follow it up toward the palaces, and then cut over and out with no one the wiser."

He waited. She took a deep breath and scanned the entire area they could see, and finally nodded. "You go first," she said. "I'll guard your back."

The funny thing was, he really believed her. She had the sword, she had Giles just chomping at the bit to go back in time with her. She didn't really need him, and yet, if he got attacked, he'd be willing to bet she'd be there, because she'd said she would.

It didn't get put to the test as they ran across the sand and dove for the cover of the crack. The winged beast above didn't see or didn't care, too busy dodging bright tendrils of lightning streaking across the sky. Spike led the way along the crack in the earth. It was rough going, mostly clinging and climbing along the rough rock walls, and pretty soon he and Buffy were pretty far apart so they wouldn't get in each other's way.

The big pile of sand that blocked the way was easy to climb, so Spike sped up. When he got to the top, he found himself face to face with Angelus, who was sitting at the top keeping an eye on the battle in the sky while directing vampires into a tunnel that branched off from the crack on the other side of the pile of sand.

"Shit," Spike said. Angelus lunged to his feet. "Just passing through?" Spike said, as loudly as he dared. The roar of the winged beasts above and the crash of thunder were going to make warning Buffy a challenge.

"Spike. I'm glad you decided to stop by," Angelus said.

"I'm not," Spike said frankly, stepping back to where Buffy'd be able to see him and making obscure gestures behind his back. He searched for something more to say. "Actually, I was hoping to poach a meal from the hell demon den and what are _you_ doing here?"

"Right now? I'm testing out this scepter Drusilla gave me," Angelus said. "And you're going to help me."

The sand beneath Spike's feet started quivering, and he was down in it to his ankles before he threw himself sideways and clung to solid rock.

"Like a cheap watch," Angelus said. "I'll tell you the truth, you've got the worst timing of anyone I've ever wanted to kill." The rock started the quiver too. "You should have stayed away, Spike. You should have stayed beneath my notice."

Spike pulled himself up onto another jut of rock. He could see the top, the place where torn and jagged rock met the flat ground above. It was just out of reach.

"But you've never know when to quit, have you? You traitor, you thought you could steal my crown and my glory, and I will make you-"

Buffy appeared, laying flat along the ground just above Spike. She reached down and pulled Spike up. He got a grip on the edge and then he was out.

"Buffy?" Angelus said, completely stunned.

They were already running when the ground started heaving. They ran flat out, not making any attempt at concealment, not looking back to see if anyone was chasing them. They only dodged when the winged creatures swooped low and flamed. As a giant area in front of them charred and smoked, they swerved away, only to have their path blocked again by another burst of flames.

Behind them, someone was gaining on them. Spike grabbed Buffy's arm and pushed her toward the flamed area. "We can't let them herd us," he shouted.

"You're the flammable one," Buffy shouted back as they scurried across the hot sands, barely touching down. The movement of the sand beneath them actually helped, stirring some cooler sand in with the hot. Somehow, Spike didn't actually catch on fire, though his feet and legs felt scorched. Buffy didn't even look hurt, she plunged on ahead, and Spike had to churn twice as fast to catch up with her.

Soon after that, the ground stopped shaking. Spike didn't glance back to check, but he thought it was a pretty good guess that Angelus had a problem with winged creatures keeping him busy.

Once they made it out of the sand, things got both easier and harder. Harder because they dashed into the town with a pair of Angelus's vampires just behind them. But easier because there were places to hide. There were places to double back and cover their trail, and most importantly, there was a place were they could disappear underground and never be found, if only they could get to it.

When they'd lost the vampires on their tail, Buffy got out the blindfold.

"You've got to be kidding me," Spike said.

"Hey, just because we're in deadly danger doesn't mean I should skimp on the precautions that keep me and my friends safe from other kinds of deadly danger," Buffy said. He didn't argue, they didn't have time.

Blindfold. Nose plug. She left out the ear plugs. "Tell me if you hear anything I don't," Buffy said, and they were off, her running lightly, him stumbling through darkness with half his senses muffled. Up and down and all fall down, and she dragged him on until he regained his feet.

"That bloody hurt," he muttered.

"Would you rather-"

"Save your breath for running," he snapped.

She huffed something about a gag.

Finally, they stopped. He felt around until he found the wall and then leaned casually against it. He heard the noise of a key in a lock, and then a jingling that grew more frantic. The key was reinserted and more jingling.

"Shit," Buffy said. "It won't open. We're gonna have to try another door."

Spike sighed. More darkness. More running. A distant shout that didn't bode well for them if they didn't get in and safe soon. The fighting had reached the town just behind them. Buffy started weaving them back and forth.

"If I took off the blindfold-"

"No."

More running. Some stopping and sneaking. He was bleeding from a dozen scrapes. "I'm not gonna put up with this for much longer," he warned her. "At some point you gotta take a bloody risk."

"We're almost there," Buffy said. "And by almost I mean...we're here."

He leaned against the wall. He hated to admit it, but he needed to rest for a moment.

He heard the same sounds, key in lock, but this time the key turned but the door still wouldn't open. Buffy kicked it, and it sounded bloody solid. "It's blocked from the inside," Buffy said. "This isn't an accident."

"It's Faith," Spike said. Buffy said it at exactly the same time.

"Fuck," Spike added.

"I know another way in," Buffy said.

"Yeah, well, what makes you think-" Spike froze, then tore off the blindfold. "There's somebody here," he said, just in time to keep from being staked. God, she was quick. She got through the door first too, but then she didn't have to look around the ugly office to find it amidst the tattered books and diplomas either. In the hallway, four vampires loitered like college students with especially big canine teeth and a penchant for attacking the professor. Buffy took the first one in five seconds flat, Spike took the next, and the other two turned and fled, calling for help.

"We've got to get out of here fast," Buffy said. But they hadn't gotten far when they picked up a tail again, and then it was out the window and up a drainpipe and along a roof, and just when it seemed like they'd gotten away, they had to crawl through a waterlogged basement to escape from a patrol of twenty demons. Their chase wasn't the only thing going on, the fighting was getting louder too, and the sky, when they bothered to look up, was dark with hell's flying creatures.

Buffy insisted that she was leading them toward another way back into the underground complex, but it didn't matter that Spike knew where they were because Buffy wasn't getting anywhere. The third time they clambered over the same roof and into an abandoned building through the same window, Spike was fed up. He stopped.

"It only works to confuse me if I can't see we're going in circles," he said.

"I can't get where we're going," Buffy said. "This is bad. This is very bad."

"Go straight and kill them all as we come to them," Spike suggested.

Buffy hesitated, then nodded. "We've got to get back," she agreed.

After that, things went good for a while, they plowed through killing and spreading chaos as they went until the chaos caught up with them and one of the winged creatures landed in front of them. It was flanked by several dozen other hell demons, and with one accord, Buffy and Spike turned and fled. Not a chance there.

And after that they couldn't manage to get away even though that was all they were trying to do.

"Bloody Angelus and his bloody war," Spike grumbled.

"In here," Buffy said, pulling Spike into a shop decorated in pale pinks and blues. It must have sold baby clothes or something, back when these shops actually sold anything.

Buffy went directly to the back of the shop and felt around and then opened a door camouflaged by the pink and blue stripes. "A friend of mine showed me this," she said, climbing the ladder in the space revealed. Spike followed her up into a tiny attic space filled with canned goods.

"That must have been some friend," he said.

"Someone I trust," she said. Unlike you, her critical gaze said, but who was she kidding? She'd brought him here.

"Well?" Spike said after a minute had passed and Buffy was just standing there.

She sat down. "We're going to have to wait, we can't get through right now. We'll be safe here."

-.-.-.-.-

At first they sat stiffly, each in their own little area, facing each other cross-legged. Careful not to intrude. They listened to the shouts and the explosions and the rumble of buildings falling. They weren't really safe here, but nothing they could do about it.

Eventually Spike decided to hell with it and stretched out his legs into her area. She didn't object. The sounds of fighting were in the street just outside, and it didn't look like they were going anywhere soon.

About when the crashing outside had become grunts and the occasional whimper, she delicately slumped against a crate of canned peas and her foot slid against his leg. She moved it just enough that she wasn't touching him, but now she was in his area.

He moved into the space she'd vacated a few minutes later, stretching out further, and this time she gave him an irritated look and then very deliberately nudged him over with her foot so she could stretch out too.

And they waited, occasionally shifting and rearranging, never touching.

Buffy broke the silence between them with an idle question. "What did Angel mean when he called you a traitor?"

Spike shifted uncomfortably. "Well, I left."

"That's not very traitorous," Buffy said, not pushing, just lazy conversation-making between Slayer and vampire.

"I left with a few dozen crates of his best Irish whiskey and a few bags of gold and some jewelry," Spike said. Spoils of hell. It should have been enough to last him forever, but he'd pissed it way in a few months.

Buffy snorted, as lady-like as a snort could be.

"And I might have called him some choice names too. I bet he felt that more that even the whiskey."

Buffy was caught between smiling and frowning. Taking that as a challenge, Spike told her a story about Angelus and a parrot, carefully expurgated of the worst of the senseless violence for Slayer ears. That made her smile.

After that, it was stories about Angelus and stories about Dru, all carefully chosen and edited. None of the ones involving Dru's penchant for children, none of the ones involving excessive violence against innocents - it was a wonder there were any stories left, but there were. Angelus got his pride pricked often enough, and Dru, Dru had a way of looking at the world that led to absurdity as often as it led to pure violence...

"She should have been mine forever," Spike grumbled. "And she would have been, I would have done anything to keep her, even if it meant-"

Buffy watched him alertly. "Is that what Angelus meant when he said you tried to steal his glory?"

It was like she already knew what he was about to say. Probably she did, if she'd been listening to Angelus back there. His crown and his glory, and it could have been Spike's, if only he'd had better timing. Outside, the winds of hell carried screams of war and torment to them, and even if he fell silent he'd remember all the same.

So he said it. He'd never thought he'd tell anyone this story.

"Yeah, I would have raised hell to keep Drusilla," he admitted.

-.-.-.-.-

"Acathla. Mundatus sum. Pro te necavi. Sanguinem meum pro te effundam-"

"Spike, I didn't think you cared. Trying to get to hell after all? Without me?"

Angelus grabbed Spike's wheelchair and threw it - and Spike - away from Acathla. The chair hit the ground a few feet away and tipped over, spilling Spike onto the ground.

"I just want what Dru wants," Spike said, pushing himself up with his arms.

Angelus laughed. "Dru wants someone who walks on their own two feet," he said. "But I guess that's never going to be you again, now is it? Maybe it's time for you to just accept that you're not good enough, and _stop trying to steal my statue_." Each of the last words was punctuated with a kick.

Spike groaned and pretended like it hurt more than it did. Angelus wasn't fooled, but he was more eager to hear what Spike had to say than to punish him.

"What's the secret? What've I been missing that you thought you could manage?"

"You'd have done the same thing," Spike said.

"But if I'd done it, Spikey, it'd have worked," Angelus said, punctuating it with a particularly well placed kick. "Now, are you going to tell me, or should I cut off those legs that have been causing you so much trouble?"

"Never," Spike ground out.

"You know you don't have a chance, I'll have it out of you."

"I don't know that at all," Spike said. "You're a pig-headed fool-" The rest of what he was going to say got lost in a grunt as Angelus lifted him up and held him dangling.

Dru turned reluctantly from where she'd _still_ been making out with Rupert Giles. "I know the secret...the secret. Yes." She licked her lips and smiled at Angelus. "And the secret knows me. I can tell you what to do."

-.-.-.-.-

"So it was because of you that Angelus knew what to do?" Buffy said. He'd expected anger, or suspicion, or a punch to the nose.

"Me and Dru," Spike said. "Couldn't have done it without her."

What he wasn't expecting was sympathy. "You really loved her," Buffy said.

"Yeah," Spike agreed. "Like a bloody fool."

The silence stretched. It was even quiet outside.

"Would it have been worth it, to have Drusilla in hell?" Buffy asked. Not judgmental. Wistful.

"No," Spike said, a little too quickly. He stopped to really think about it. This place of wrath and tears, sulfur and brimstone, war and woe. With Drusilla... "No," he repeated reluctantly. "Not even for Drusilla."

Buffy looked away.

Spike sighed.

Something exploded in the next block over.

"Sometimes I wonder if I can do this," Buffy said in a small voice.

"What?"

"If I can kill Angelus. Angel. If I...if I really _want_ to. Even now."

"Because you still love the bastard." Spike thought about it for a moment. "But you've got what it takes. I saw you fighting the first time around, and the only reason you lost was because you didn't have backup. You weren't holding anything back then, and you won't hold anything back this time coming up either. When we get back, you'll see. And I'll be there-" He stopped. "Or someone will."

"Giles is talking about going back with me so he can lie to Drusilla when she tries to trick him, and then kill himself taking Dru down when she kisses him."

Spike tried not to show how tense he was.

"Poison," Buffy continued, not looking at Spike. "Something strong enough to knock down a vampire even if it won't kill her. Then I'd only have to face Angelus."

Spike relaxed. Rupert bloody Giles just had a plan to kill himself, not Dru too.

"Guilt," he said slowly into Buffy's unhappy silence. "Not a pretty thing." He ran his finger along the scabs on his wrists. The were all riddled with it, Buffy, Giles...Spike. Yeah, he wanted out of this bloody hell, but would he have let them chain him up if he didn't feel it too? Would he even be here if it wasn't for guilt? Or would he be out there with Angelus and the other vampires, fighting for a bit of whatever was left?

"Last week it was that I should go back and kill him before he could talk to Drusilla. This week, it's poison." Buffy took a deep breath. "But I'm not going to let him. I want you with me. We have to stop Angel, but no one else has to die."

"I'm with you," Spike said. "We've both got a second chance to show them we're more than just love's bitches. And we're bloody well taking it."


	7. Chapter 7

Night passed slowly, with heavy fighting outside and catnaps inside. Spike got a little sleep. He only needed a little. Buffy got a little more, woke with a start, gave Spike a look of reproach, and scrambled up on the crates and peered out through a small round window. Spike could see the sky over her shoulder: the day, or what passed for day in a land without sunlight, was murky and dim. The fighting was in the south.

"It's not that bad outside," she said quietly. "In the direction we're going. But there's a guard just outside."

Spike climbed up to look over her shoulder. "Do we care about one puny guard?"

"If the guard raises the alarm... But we've waited this long," Buffy said, clearly torn. "I hope everyone's okay. We've got to get back soon, or..."

Spike slithered back across the boxes and opened the trapdoor.

"Spike!" Buffy half shouted, half whispered, angry but not wanting to draw attention. He ignored her, awareness of the risk he was taking like the buzz of electricity working up to a zap.

"Spike. Come back. What are you doing?" But he was already down the ladder and out the door.

An angry woman at his back and an angry woman turning to meet him. Wasn't life grand?

"Hey, love," he said to Millie.

-.-.-.-.-

"Never do that ever ever again," Buffy said.

"Will if I want to," he said, casually. He'd been right, after all. Millie'd done her part for the ending of hell and escorted them all the way out of town, and then Buffy had found the cave entrance to the underground bunker, and they were currently on their way back home through an endless passageway with no distinguishing features. It was like one of those dreams of running without ever getting anywhere. "It worked, didn't it?" And that was all that mattered to him.

She didn't say anything.

"I don't take your orders," he said.

"Just don't expect me to take yours, or to deal with it when you..."

She trailed off, slowing down as they approached a T intersection. She'd been taking the few turns like she knew where she was going, but now she frowned, looking right and then left.

"Do you hear that?" Spike asked abruptly.

Buffy took off running down the left passage, toward the familiar sound of fighting, Spike on her heels. The sounds got louder and louder, and every turn Buffy made brought them closer. It was an area of the underground complex Spike had never seen, but if he had to bet he'd say they were heading for the Buffy's friends. She had that kind of look.

Somewhere in front of them, there was a rumble, the sound so deep it could be both heard and felt, like a buzzing through muscle and bones. It grew louder, thundering, unbearable. And then, slowly, it tapered off, leaving behind a stunned silence.

"Is that where we're going?" Spike asked. His voice echoed oddly in his head.

"Maybe," Buffy said nervously, but he could hardly hear her.

"Bloody great," Spike said. He would have said more, but just at that moment he saw movement out of the corner of his eye. Something fast, claws extended -

As he was turning, Buffy shouted "Duck!"

She and Spike hit the floor as a machine gun opened fire over their heads, killing off a flock of blazing-eyed hawks screaming down the hall behind them.

"Come on," the soldier said, waving them to follow. He was going their way, so they scrambled to their feet and raced after him. They turned a corner and almost ran into a barricade of shredded hellbeasts. There might have been some office furniture in underneath too, but Spike could only see the occasional metal corner. There had been some serious carnage going on here.

Up and over, squishing and squirming through the gap at the top between the barricade and the ceiling, and the soldiers on the other side greeted them with cheers and slaps on the back. They looked like they hadn't been getting many wins today, so they'd take whatever and call it a win.

But not for too long. A few moments of jubilation, and then the barricade shook like something was ramming it. "Hellbeasts," one soldier muttered. "Red-eyed flesh-eating..." The soldiers pushed in, and pushed Buffy and Spike out, away from the barricade until they were clear of the knot of soldiers.

"Faith's along that way," one of them said, nodding toward a branching hallway, before turning back. "Give them more lead! Rip them to ribbons!"

"Thanks," Buffy said. Spike kept his head down. This was the last place he wanted to be identified as a vampire.

On this side of the barricade, the air was hot and damp and every surface was grimy: floors, walls, ceiling, the faces of the people rushing urgently in all directions. The walls were covered in networks of cracks, some gaping wide enough to harbor a giant rat or two, and the ceiling was askew, tilted and bulging like something viewed through a fun-house mirror.

The people were the young and strong type that Faith had probably recruited, and they were just this side of complete panic and riot. Spike could smell their sweat, their anguish, their terror.

"Sodding amateurs," Spike growled as they pushed their way into the turmoil. If he wasn't playing ally around here, he'd bloody well show them something to be afraid of. His body vibrated with desire, for more of that delectable terror-

And he got it. The screams started in the cross corridor, and human bodies pressed back, a shock wave of flesh retreating from some new threat. Mmmm.

"Out of the way, I'm the Slayer!" Buffy shouted, and pressed forward. Spike breathed in the scent of food crushing against him, and another scent. Musty, ancient, strong. He wanted to let his game face emerge, but had to settle for pushing violently through the throng. Food was all very well, but there was something worth fighting up there.

The crowd was thinning, disappearing into the rooms that lined the corridors, finding somewhere else to be. He heard a roar, more shouts, and he caught of glimpse of spiraling horns. Two pairs. More. And as the humans closest to the fight backed off, supporting a wounded comrade, Buffy burst through to take up the slack, sword in hand.

They rushed her, four lithe hellbeasts like a wall of muscle and horn, but the wall broke against one tiny girl who wouldn't be moved. Spike moved in as the formation fell apart, grabbing a horn and twisting to snap the beast's neck. The sodding beast didn't seem to notice.

Buffy laid on with the sword, and they didn't seem to notice that either. Zombie hellbeasts. But blow by blow, they forced the beasts back into the cross corridor. Blow by blow, they slowed them down, changed lithe into awkward, until Buffy thrust and got her sword stuck.

The sword bent without breaking as the hellbeast turned, and then Buffy let go of the sword before it could break. It was springy metal, and swayed back and forth, putting the beast off balance so that Spike could tackle it. Buffy pulled the sword free and Spike leapt up in time to block a blow from another hellbeast. Buffy's face was white as she sheathed the sword. Too precious to use.

"Go, sod it!" Spike shouted at Buffy. "Get the bloody sword to Willow. These are mine."

She didn't hesitate.

One by one, Spike disabled the hellbeasts, breaking and crushing until some soldiers showed up. Then he ran after Buffy. He wasn't gonna give up his spot on the back to the past express if he could help it.

The floor shook: another deep rumble, worse because it seemed to be coming from everywhere. Dust and ashes filled the air, distributed by a fiery breeze. Spike sped through the coughs and chokes of strangers, hearing the frenetic sound of machine-gun fire back at the barricade.

He slammed into someone in the confusion, tried to bat them aside, got thrown aside instead, astonished until he realized who it must have been. By the time he'd pushed to his feet, he found himself staring at the tear-streaked face of the other Slayer, with a stake coming at his heart too fast for him to do anything.

Buffy barreled into Faith and the stake just scratched Spike's side.

Spike saw his opportunity a moment later, and kicked and then hooked his foot around Faith's. She fell and Buffy stood over her. "No killing Spike," Buffy said. "He's gonna help me save the world." Faith looked at her dully. Not like she didn't believe, like she'd had all the care knocked right out of her.

"Vampires," Faith said. "From above. Demons from below. We're in the middle. We're going to die."

"No we're not," Buffy said, so very confident, while Spike wondered if he and Buffy had given the sodding 'vampires from above' the clue they needed to get in. Maybe she hadn't thought of that. Maybe she didn't care.

The reason for the tilted, saggy ceilings was revealed as the dust cleared. It filled the hallway from floor to above where the ceiling would have been and sprawled through the walls, a giant lump of coal-black beast, thickly muscled with glittering scales and knife-edged protrusions at every angle. Girders were snapped where it had writhed, and it was half buried under a pile of rocks. But it wasn't dead. It was still moving,

"How on Earth..." Buffy said, her mouth agape.

"This is the end," Faith said.

Some of the debris near the monster was moving too. Wounded humans. Some dead as well. Other humans darted in and dragged the ones that were moving out of danger...or at least out of immediate danger. There was blood, but Spike couldn't smell it through the ash and dust. It all seemed unreal: just something seen on the telly, without the pungent smells of reality.

"What _happened_?" Buffy asked, holding out a hand to Faith.

"Did you do that?" Spike asked.

"We just kept hacking," Faith said. "And bashing. And ramming it. And I forced it back and the others set off the charge."

"Good job," Buffy said.

"It doesn't make any difference," Faith said.

"Yes it does," Buffy said firmly. "I've got this-" She patted the sword at her side.

"A sword isn't gonna do much."

"-and Willow's got the rest of what we need."

"B., what are you even talking about?"

"Saving the world."

"Look at this! We can't even save ourselves." There was another burst of machine gun fire from the direction they'd come.

"I don't have time to explain, you're gonna have to trust me."

Faith got to her feet and stood squarely, no strut, no angle of the hip, no real awareness of her body as a weapon or a toy. She was covered in blood and ichor and after a moment shifted to favor her right leg.

Then she laughed. "Don't have much choice, do I?"

"Never give up hope," Buffy said, giving Faith a quick half-hug that left the other Slayer looking a bit stunned. "Come on, you've gotta help me get past that thing and get to Willow."

"What?" Faith yelped, but Buffy was on the move again, darting forward, skipping to the side, looking for an opening while avoiding the thing's claws. "She's gonna kill herself," Faith said to Spike.

"Not if we do our part," Spike said with a grin that threatened to turn fangy. To hell with hiding, he needed every advantage he could get. "I don't know about you, but I think it's time to play knight," he said.

He took a few steps back and then _ran_, straight for the beast. At the last moment, he swerved, picked up a steel girder. It was stuck in the tangle of debris, but Buffy saw what he was doing and darted in to push it free and then they were both retreating, unharmed.

Spike settled the girder on his shoulder and then ran again, straight for the beast with the girder pointed forward like a lance. He hit it with everything he had, and the vibrations of the beam almost made him drop it.

He stumbled back, and then went for it again, Buffy darting here and there, Faith watching with an open mouth. He still didn't make a dent in the beast, but this time the beast roared and laboriously shifted itself as he retreated. The wall cracked a bit more. Still no room past, but if it'd just move a bit more...

"You're crazy," Faith said. "I'm crazy..."

She shoved him and grabbed the beam from him and started running. And for the first time, Spike saw in her a Slayer he'd like to fight, not the controlling bitch who hid her lack of confidence behind a bold facade, but a Slayer with nothing held back. God, Slayers could fight when they put their mind to it.

When she came back for another run, Spike took hold of the trailing end and they ran together, the one two punch of crazy hope, jostling and running and then Buffy was through. Spike let go and scraped through after her. Behind them, over the roar of hell's giant monster, he could hear Faith shouting. The sounds faded as they raced down the corridor and skidded to a stop in front of a tightly closed door.

It was quieter here, but there were signs of fighting. The door was scored with claw-marks and streaks of ichor.

Buffy raised her hand to knock, failed to find a nice clean place to do it, and finally called out, "It's me. Giles? Willow? Let me in."

Giles, a sword in his hand, opened the door. There was a gun and a bottle of water on a table by the door, and a pole-arm leaned against the wall. Trust the Watcher to have every weapon imaginable at hand. Spike doubted he'd be able to use them.

"Buffy! We've been so worried!" Willow said. "And you've got it!"

"Good job, Buff. We'll forgive you for making us think you must have fallen into a hellhole," Xander said.

"You're all okay!" Buffy said happily, and then everyone was rushing at each other and it was enough hugs to smother a crocodile.

Spike stepped well out of the way. He wouldn't have minded if the herd of clueless teenagers had been thinned a bit, and-

And there was a bloody great glowing gateway in the center of the room. _This_ was the portal? It looked like part of a bloody castle, an archway constructed out of glowing blocks slotted into place with the capstone glowing the brightest of all. There was a swirl of magic in the gap, and as Spike stared, Willow pulled away from the tangle of greeting holding the sword. She set it down in the center of the archway and took the book that werewolf boy offered her and started chanting.

Not wasting any time. Good.

"Willow is...much more powerful than I'd ever expected. You'd do well to remember that," Giles murmured to Spike. Thinking about the future already, when they were gonna be enemies again.

"Getting ahead of yourself, aren't you, Rupert? Save the threats for after I save the world."

Poor old Rupert looked like he'd eaten something sour. "Buffy will-"

"-win, so long as I'm there to fight Dru," Spike said. "Don't flatter yourself, you wouldn't have a chance against her, not even if you try poison. Think she wouldn't see that in your mind? She killed a bloody Slayer." And that still made him feel a little tingle of pride.

Now the Watcher looked like he'd eaten an entire lemon straight, and would never get the taste out of his mouth.

Willow kept chanting. She seemed nervous; it took Spike a few seconds to realize that her nerves were all about the noises coming from outside, not the spellwork. She seemed pretty confident with the spellwork, probably because the whole big glowing edifice that filled most of the room had given her plenty of practice.

Spike moved around to get a better view of the portal from the other side. The glow was increasing, bright like sunlight, and wasn't that just typical. He squinted and automatically turned away to guard the most of his skin from the inimical light. The noises from outside the room were getting louder, but the spell had to be almost done. Buffy was standing next to Willow, peering into the mist. As soon as there was anything there, she'd be ready. Spike moved toward her, aware of Giles moving to counter him from the other side of the portal.

The wall behind Giles crumbled and demons poured through.

Spike reacted instantly, leaping to the attack, and he was aware of Buffy on the other side of the room doing the same. The others milled in confusion. Useless lot.

Spike was forced to revise his opinion a few moment later. They were hardly fighters, but they did manage to get out of his and Buffy's way, and Giles was laying about with the pole-arm. He even had some idea how to use it. Who'd have thought?

The fight settled into a rhythm, with the useless ones gathered in a ring around Willow protecting her with their bodies, and the fighters keeping the demons at bay. Willow, her brow furrowed in concentration, was saying magical words that no one could hear - except maybe the magics that would come at her calling. Spike didn't look at the portal, it was getting far too bright. Still not burning him, though, so that was something. The demon hoard seemed never-ending.

"It's done!" Willow shouted. "Quick, Buffy-"

Spike risked a glance, but all he could see through the portal was a blur of brilliance. If he went though, he might end up in sunlight...but if he stayed, he might be eaten by a demon. You have to take a risk sometime.

"Come on," he shouted to Buffy. He could see her pulling free from her fight, and he gave the demon he was fighting one last kick to remember him by, pushed aside Xander and fell through the portal.

-.-.-.-.-

He was sitting in his wheelchair.

How he'd _loathed_ this bloody wheelchair.

Acres of silence stretched out around him, shocking silence after the bellows and snarls and clangs of the fight he'd left behind.

The air was fresh. No fumes, no smoke, no gritty ashes.

"Dru, love?" he called, but no one answered. He wheeled himself through a couple of empty rooms, calling at intervals, and still no one. They must be out. Which might just put this as just about the time they'd been aiming for.

But an empty place like this, it could be any time in the months before, really.

Only one way to find out.

-.-.-.-.-

It was the right night. It could stand to be a bit earlier, but this would do. He tracked down Buffy just in time to stop a bobby looking to arrest her. Didn't the bloody coppers know who their friends were?

"Hello cutie," he said with a smirk. And here they were again, vampire and Slayer, about to save the world.

Or not. She took one look at him and it was immediate fierce attack, no joke, she meant to take him out.

"Now, you hold on a second!" he said, pushing her away. She had a bit more mass than he was expecting, and for a moment it puzzled him, and then the truth exploded through his mind. This wasn't the Buffy he'd come to know. She hadn't made it. This was past Buffy, pure and simple. Never been to hell, never made a deal with a vampire.

He was shocked by his own disappointment.

"Hey! White flag here. I quit," he said, playing for time.

Buffy said something, and as she spoke, he measured her up, because he'd be damned - literally - if he gave up now. His Buffy would never forgive him. She might not be here, but he could still try to make a deal with this Buffy. After all, he knew that some version of Buffy would believe him, as long as he made it good, and told her exactly what she'd believe.

He knew exactly what she'd believe. He knew the key to Buffy now, so he'd tell her a tale about the world that he loved, and the hell that he hated...and about what he'd do for Dru. For love.

The key to Buffy was love.

-.-.-.-.-

He drove down the highway, Dru on the seat beside him, each moment further confirmation that Buffy had pulled it off. She'd managed to save the world. It wasn't going to be another story of hell. It wasn't going to need another try. This was the real deal. This was the world, and he was the only one who knew it had ever been any different.

Everyone else - they were gone into the land of could be but isn't. All of them. Valiant Willow, obnoxious Xander. Cordelia, Oz, Giles. Faith. Angelus.

And Buffy. His Buffy. The Slayer who'd fought by his side, and not just for a few minutes. This Buffy - she'd never know about the tentative understanding a Slayer and a vampire could come to over time, if the times were bad enough. It'd been hard enough to convince her to let him help her, and it wasn't like she'd had much of a choice.

And it was bloody stupid to think it was a loss. Slayers and vampires, born enemies. It was better that way.

He drove on, into the sunrise, the fresh air blowing in through a dangerous crack in the window. He couldn't get over how fresh the air was. It smelled like freedom.

Dru finally stirred. Moaned. Sat up and looked at him. "Naughty Spike. Where are we going?"

"Away."

"No we're not. You're not. You'll never leave Sunnydale."

Ah Dru. Always a challenge. "There, there, love."

"You smell like sulfur and ashes. All powdery. All burnt into something new."

"You've got no bloody idea, love," Spike said.

"I don't like ashes."

"Bloody good thing we didn't end up in hell, then, isn't it?" Spike said impatiently. What was she on about anyway?

"But this is hell," Drusilla said, staring at Spike. "You will make it so. You should have killed the Slayer, Spike."

And all around him, vivid colors, sweet smelling air. The Slayer's hair had been pure gold in the morning light. "Maybe next time," Spike said. Because promise or no promise, he'd be back. The Slayer couldn't expect to get off that easy.

THE END


End file.
